Canadian-based mining company C3 Metals says new underground mapping at its Bellas Gate, St Catherine, project has strengthened the case for drilling deeper in its search for copper and gold in Jamaica, with the company now preparing an 11-hole programme that could provide another important test of the country’s potential to develop a commercial copper industry.

The exploration company plans to begin drilling in October following completion of its largest three-dimensional electrical geophysical survey at Bellas Gate, covering more than 80 square kilometres.

The work has allowed C3 to look much deeper beneath areas where earlier drilling had already encountered copper and gold and to identify several targets that it believes warrant further investigation.

The company has added a large new target at the Kola prospect in south-eastern Bellas Gate to the drilling programme, while strong subsurface anomalies were identified at the Provost and Lucky Valley prospects farther north-west within the same exploration area.

The findings come as Jamaica steps up efforts to broaden its mining industry beyond bauxite and alumina, including a renewed search for commercially viable deposits of copper, gold, and other minerals.

Mining Minister Floyd Green told Parliament in May that C3 had reported encouraging indications of possible large copper deposits and was moving into further exploration.

Green said that if ongoing exploration by C3 and other companies eventually uncovers commercial-scale deposits, Jamaica could benefit through additional export earnings, taxes, and royalties.

There is still some distance to go before that can be determined.

C3 has so far established the presence of copper and gold mineralisation at several areas within Bellas Gate, but has not established a commercially viable deposit.

At the Connors prospect within Bellas Gate, for example, one hole intersected 309 metres grading 0.44 per cent copper and 0.33 grams per tonne of gold, while drilling at nearby Provost returned mineralised sections extending for more than 200 metres.

Historical mining tunnels at C3 Metals’ Bellas Gate project in Jamaica. The company says 62 old adits and shafts have been identified near areas now being explored for copper and gold.

The search is taking place in the Central Inlier, an area of central Jamaica where some of the island’s oldest rocks are exposed at the surface. These rocks reveal Jamaica’s volcanic past and have made the area a focus of copper and gold exploration. Spanish miners extracted gold there from as early as the 16th century, while copper and gold were later mined by the British. C3 says 62 old shafts and tunnels associated with 19th-century mining remain around Bellas Gate.

The latest work is intended to help the company determine where it should drill next and, importantly, where it should go deeper. The Canadian-based company’s 3D electrical survey measures differences in the electrical properties of rocks beneath the surface, allowing explorers to build a picture of geological structures that cannot be seen from above. In a recent press statement, the company said the survey was designed to investigate known copper and gold systems to depths of around 700 metres and potentially as deep as 1,000 metres.

C3 added that the technology has become particularly important as its exploration moves deeper underground.

“The Bellas Gate project hosts multiple high-level porphyries that remain open at depth. Numerous drill holes from previous programmes ended in copper/gold mineralisation,” C3 Metals President and CEO Dan Symons said.

“The potential of the high-grade cores of these known porphyries requires deeper drilling,” he added.

C3 has now designed a programme of up to 11 holes covering approximately 10,800 metres. Drilling is expected to start in October and run through April 2027.

The exploration is being backed by Phoenix, Arizona-based Freeport-McMoRan, one of the world’s largest publicly traded copper producers, which entered an agreement with C3 last year that could see it spend up to US$75 million on exploration and project-related costs at Bellas Gate in exchange for an interest of up to 75 per cent.

That agreement significantly increased the financial muscle behind the search for copper and gold at the wider Bellas Gate project, which spans 13,020 hectares across the Bellas Gate, Browns Hall, and Arthurs Seat Special Exclusive Prospecting Licences.

— Karena Bennett