VR Introduction
Introduction
VR is an established junior exploration company. VR is a publically traded, Canadian company registered in British Columbia and listed on the Venture Exchange (TSX.V) in Vancouver under the symbol VRR.V, with secondary listings in Frankfurt (5VR) and on the OTCQB in the United States (VRRCF).
Business activities include the evaluation, acquisition and exploration of mineral exploration properties for the purpose of discovering an economic mineral deposit. VR is advancing greenfield opportunities in copper, gold and critical metals in Nevada, USA, and Ontario, Canada, and most recently, a kimberlite breccia pipe field in northern Ontario. VR has the in-house experience and expertise in greenfields exploration to apply modern mineral deposit models and state-of-the-art exploration technologies to explore large-footprint systems in underexplored areas and mineral districts for new, blue-sky discoveries.
VR is the continuance of 4 years of active mineral exploration as a private company starting in 2014, followed by a successful IPO 2017. The founders are Michael Gunning, CEO, and Darin Wagner, Chairman. The Company is founded on their diverse careers in the global mineral exploration, and their proven track record in the junior mineral exploration sector, having steered three different companies in the past twelve years from discovery through successful M&A transactions for an aggregate valuation in excess of C$1.3B.
The goal of VR is explicit: leverage its experience and expertise in grassroots exploration towards early-stage discovery in order to capture the steepest part of the value creation curve in the exploration and mining process for its shareholders.
The Company maintains its day-to-day work out of an exploration office established in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Company employs a tight administrative cost structure, with a focus on translating publically-raised funds directly into its mineral exploration on the ground.
The Company limits its annual financing goals to rigorous annual exploration budgets in order to maintain a tight share structure. That structure includes a 10-12% insider position, maintained by participation in financings on an ongoing basis. Further, there is a collective holding of approximately 45% of the Company’s shares held by the CEO, six mining-long resource investment funds and one strategic holding in an energy company.
Exploration Model
The Company is focused on opportunities in mineral deposit districts which have been underexplored during the past 50 years of the modern exploration era. The Company applies modern mineral deposit models and new exploration technologies to properties with large hydrothermal and alteration footprints for critical metals, copper and gold, and most recently has discovered a new kimberlite breccia pipe complex and potential kimberlite field in northern Ontario.
VR explores properties it owns outright, 100%, in order to leverage their upside potential to shareholders. Mineral exploration properties in Nevada are held in a wholly-owned US subsidiary registered in Nevada. New opportunities are evaluated on an ongoing basis, whether by internal generative work and direct staking, by a joint venture or a direct acquisition of a property from a third party, or by a corporate transaction (e.g. merger).
The Company has completed independent, NI 43-101 compliant Technical Reports on two of its properties: the Bonita copper-gold porphyry property in Nevada, dated March 2, 2017, and; the Danbo epithermal gold-silver project in Nevada, dated January 27, 2020. Both are filed on SEDAR.
Technical Information and Governance
VR strives for technical excellence in its work, and corporate industry leadership. VR’s management has led numerous industry and research organizations in the past, and is recognized with numerous industry achievement and recognition awards.
Technical information contained on this website has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101. Justin Daley, MSc, P.Geo., VP Exploration at VR and a non-independent Qualified Person oversees all aspects of the Company’s mineral exploration projects. The content of this document, and this website, has been prepared and reviewed on behalf of the Company by the CEO, Dr. Michael Gunning, PhD, P.Geo., a non-independent Qualified Person.
Current Exploration Plans, Second Half of 2023
VR added a third drill hole to Northway in June 2023, based on visual confirmation of kimberlite breccia rock at the centre of the 1.2 km magnetic anomaly at Northway in Hole 2, itself more than 450m away from the discovery hole, Hole 001, completed in November, 2022, at the southeastern edge of the anomaly. The three drill hole intersections span just shy of 700 metres of lateral extent of the breccia pipe complex, and 320 metres vertically. Some 1.3 metric tonnes of kimberlite material from nearly 500 metres of drill core combined from the three intersections has been cut, and sampled into aliquots and transported to Saskatchewan Research Centre (SRC) in Saskatoon for microdiamond analysis, for which results are expected in late summer 2023. Petrographic and SEM scanning are also underway for identification of kimberlite indicator minerals.
After rigorous historical data review of the New Boston property in the Walker Lane of west central Nevada, the company has completed two high-tech geophysical surveys with the goal to identify specific targets for drill testing the high temperature, sulfide core of the polymetallic, stockwork and sheeted vein system exposed at surface over a 4 km strike length. The Company is currently working with fully processed data and final plan maps from both surveys, and expects to report integrated results from 3D inversion models soon.
Surface work and reconnaissance drilling by Conoco, Gulf and Bear Creek at New Boston in the 1960s and 70s clearly established the scale of the system, but a sector collapse in 1981 left that work unfinished with regard to identifying and drilling a central porphyry stock for the system of sheeted veins exposed at surface. The opportunity for VR is simply to finish the work that was started by Conoco, with the advantage of modern geophysical technologies.
Our ultimate goal with a planned 10,000 ft fall 2023 drill program is two-fold: 1) Identify and drill test the sulfide core of the system, and; 2) Confirm with modern ICP geochemical techniques the polymetallic grade potential for copper and silver at New Boston, in addition to its known, world-class grades in moly.
VR is awaiting assay results from its fifth drill program at its Hecla-Kilmer critical metals discovery in northern Ontario this Spring. The plan is to commence delineation-stage drilling in follow-up to mineralization intersected in all three of the first four reconnaissance drill programs across the complex, starting in 2020.
News Release NR-23-01; January 17, 2023:
Drill Hole HK22-013:
- 361 m @ 0.96 % TREO (1), of which 20% are PMREO(2), within
- 461 m @ 0.85 % TREO + 0.13% Nb2O5, starting at surface, and including
- 39 m @ 2.01 % TREO within 66.6 m @ 1.57 % TREO with 20% as PMREO.
VR has discovered a large and rich rare earth element mineral system at Hecla-Kilmer, starting with Hole 2 in 2020 and culminating in Hole 13 in 2022, as shown above. We have been on the ground for three years proving up this discovery, with 18 of the 24 test holes completed so far having high-grade REE mineralization. It occurs in three different areas across more than 2.5 km of the overall complex.
It occurs at surface in all three areas, and has more than 500 m of vertical extent in the Hole 13 area. Finally, it is located a mere 23 km from active rail, provincial grid power and the terminus of Highway 634 at Otter Rapids; location, location, location for cost-effective exploration and favourable economic metrics for development