Kraken steps out 1.5 km south — and the thick stuff holds

Viridian Metals reported assays from two step-out holes at its Kraken copper-nickel-cobalt project in Labrador on October 23. The two holes sit well south of where the company had drilled before. VKS26-062 came in about 1.2 kilometres south of prior drilling and returned 40.8 metres grading 0.63 percent copper-equivalent — a blended grade that bundles copper, nickel and cobalt into one number — from the top of bedrock to the end of the hole, with a richer 15.05-metre slice at 1.09 percent inside it. VKS26-060, about 1.5 kilometres south, hit 23.0 metres at 0.44 percent. Both holes were drilled steeply (-80 degrees) and kept shallow, reaching roughly 50 metres down (from about 9.8 to 50.6 metres). When we last covered Viridian, it had just put a first conceptual number on Kraken — an Exploration Target of 41 to 61 million tonnes. These step-out assays are part of the batch that entry said was still landing.

Here is why thickness is the story. Kraken is a bulk-tonnage play, not a high-grade one. The broad intervals run 0.44 to 0.63 percent copper-equivalent — modest — but they are thick and start right at surface, which fits an open-pit model rather than a deep, narrow one. The step-out matters because it drags the known mineralization 1.2 to 1.5 kilometres south, from top of bedrock down to about 50 metres, and the zone stays open at the bottom of both holes. That is a bigger footprint than the modelled 8.6-metre average thickness the prior target assumed. The market has run with it: VRDN.CN rose 56 percent over three months while copper itself barely moved (up 2.6 percent) and the copper-equity index actually fell about 7 percent — a company-specific move, not a sector tide. CEO Tyrell Sutherland, a registered geologist, signed off as Qualified Person.

Now the honest part. True thickness is not stated — the company reports downhole core lengths only, and a table note explicitly says real widths are unknown, so those 23-to-41-metre intervals may overstate the actual zone. The copper-equivalent leans heavily on nickel and cobalt credits with no metallurgical testwork done and an 80 percent recovery simply assumed; VKS26-062 is only 0.23 percent copper over its 40.8 metres on copper alone. The high-grade pods are thin and sit at the bedrock contact. And these are just two of a larger batch — pending holes with visual sulphide intervals of 41.8 and 47.3 metres across a further 2.5 kilometres are the real test of whether grades hold. No mineral resource has been defined. The prior entry promised metallurgy beginning late in the fourth quarter; that work is not addressed in this release and remains pending. Assays are due roughly every three weeks to year-end, with an updated Exploration Target targeted for January 2027. A paid retail-marketing agreement is running — worth noting as you read the framing.

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