The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

Disseminated on behalf of Abitibi Metals Corp.

Copper spent twenty years pinned under $5 per pound. This month it set record highs above $6.80 and is holding near $6.31, up roughly 35% in a year, as Chile’s output falls and China’s smelters run short of concentrate.1

The International Energy Agency projects copper supply deficits persisting through 2035 on the current project pipeline.2

Every AI data center, every mile of new grid, every electric vehicle pulls on the same shrinking pool of mines. Data centers are forecast to consume more than 25% of US electricity by 2030,3 an EV uses about 2.4 times the copper of a gas car, and wind and solar need up to 8 tonnes of copper per megawatt.4,5

image5 2 The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

The majors have noticed, and they are not waiting for new discoveries. They are buying the old ones. 

In April, Eldorado Gold closed its C$3.8 billion acquisition of Foran Mining and its McIlvenna Bay copper-zinc-gold project in Saskatchewan.6 In March, Hudbay moved to acquire Arizona Sonoran.7 Long-life polymetallic deposits in safe jurisdictions have become the most fought-over assets in mining.

Which raises a question: where does the next one come from?

Here is one answer. In Quebec’s Abitibi region, a government exploration subsidiary called SOQUEM spent almost twenty years and roughly $30 million quietly drilling out a high-grade copper-gold-zinc-silver deposit called B26, seven kilometres from a past-producing mine with a power substation still standing.8 Because the owner was the government, the deposit was never promoted, never picked over by a major, and never in a public company at all, until one junior optioned it in November 2023.

That junior is Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF). In under three years it has grown the resource 124% to 25.3 million tonnes above 2% copper equivalent, bought the deposit outright, recruited the mine builders behind Foran itself, and just reported one of the best copper recoveries of any VMS project in the market.9,10 The market is only starting to price what Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) has assembled.

"Given this setting, the potential for new lenses comes as no surprise, and these results support our conviction that we are at the early stages of building a world-class VMS camp."
— Jonathon Deluce, CEO, Abitibi Metals11

image 5 The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

A Deposit Built by the Government, Now Owned Outright by One Junior

Most juniors spend a decade and their shareholders’ patience just finding something worth drilling. Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) skipped that stage. SOQUEM, a subsidiary of Investissement Québec, had already drilled 123,787 metres at B26 and published a resource before the option was ever signed.12 The company stepped into a mapped, modelled, de-risked system and pointed its rigs at growth.

The results compound on the screen. The February 2026 resource update advanced B26 to 13.0 million tonnes (Mt) Indicated at 2.1% CuEq and 12.3 Mt Inferred at 2.2% CuEq, a 124% increase since the 2023 option, with only 9% of that growth attributable to metal prices.13 The deposit runs 1.6 kilometres of continuous strike and 1,100 vertical metres, and it remains open both laterally and at depth.14

image2 4 The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

Then, on June 11, 2026, Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) secured 100% ownership of B26 for initial consideration of about C$7 million, with the balance staged at feasibility and construction decisions, and SOQUEM retaining a simple 1% NSR.15 The same agreement handed the company something the market has barely priced: a 10-year Right of First Refusal on SOQUEM’s Wagosic and Carheil properties, the two projects surrounding the historic Selbaie Mine, where SOQUEM drilled about 18,000 metres last winter and made a significant new discovery.16

Selbaie was a 60-million-tonne deposit that produced 53 Mt over twenty years. On the company’s August 2026 corporate video, CEO Jonathon Deluce put the district ambition plainly: at 25.3 Mt, “Combined, we’re already in the top 10% of VMS deposits worldwide.”17 One camp. One consolidator with the inside track.

The overlooked part of the camp Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) is consolidating is why it stayed hidden. Unlike the Rouyn or Matagami camps, the Selbaie area sits under heavy overburden that made surface prospecting nearly useless, so most historical drilling never went below 200 metres. 

Modern geophysics changes that: the company’s 2025 VTEM-MAG airborne survey defined seven priority regional targets across trends with 8.3 kilometres of underexplored strike.18 In a province where the easy discoveries have been made, an undrilled VMS camp with power running through it is a rare piece of ground, and Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) holds the keys to it.

Why are investors looking at Abitibi Metals?
Copper demand isn’t just trending higher, it’s accelerating. AI data centers, EVs, clean energy infrastructure, and global grid expansion are creating a structural, long-term need that no substitution can replace. And while giants scramble to secure feedstock, a tiny junior sits on one of Canada’s highest-grade undeveloped copper-gold deposits. Abitibi Metals (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) just delivered an updated copper-gold resource with nearly 1 billion pounds of copper equivalent and grades that rival billion-dollar names.

The Copper Behind the AI Boom Has to Come From Somewhere

image7 2 The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

Step back to the macro for a moment, because it is the engine under this whole story. Copper is the metal of electricity, and the world is electrifying faster than the mines can keep up. Chile expects production to fall this year. The IEA counts a 25% supply gap by 2035 even after every announced project.19

Meanwhile the demand curves stack: AI data centers pulling gigawatts through copper busbars and transformers, grids being rebuilt on both sides of the Atlantic, and EVs that each carry roughly 53 kilograms of copper, 2.4 times what’s used in combustion cars.20

Put numbers on the AI leg alone. A single hyperscale data center can require thousands of tonnes of copper across its transformers, busbars, cabling and cooling, and US grid operators are racing to add generation and transmission for a build-out measured in hundreds of gigawatts.21

Sprott calls copper “wired for the future” for a reason: there is no AI trade, no EV trade and no grid trade without it, and mine supply takes a decade or more to respond.22 Every pound Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) adds to the B26 resource is leverage on that arithmetic.

Gold, meanwhile, holds above $4,200 per ounce and silver above $63.23,24 B26 carries all of it: 85% of the in-situ value sits in the copper-gold stringer zone, with a zinc-silver zone alongside.25 Four metals, one deposit, every one of them in a bull market. That is the leverage its shareholders own, at an enterprise value the July deck put at about 10 cents per pound of copper equivalent in the ground.26

Grades That Get Majors Watching, and They Keep Coming

High grade is what separates a deposit from a mine, and B26 keeps delivering it. Last November, hole 269W5 returned 17.91% CuEq (13.48% copper, 5.15 g/t gold) over 6.3 metres within 6.93% CuEq over 19.5 metres, one of the highest-grade copper-gold hits reported in the district that year.27 January’s follow-up delivered 12.83% CuEq over 5 metres in the same western plunge.28

This year’s program has turned grade into tonnes. In May, Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) intersected 4.04% CuEq over 14 metres inside 46.7 metres at 1.48% CuEq, in a part of the block model previously carried at roughly a percent and a half, exactly the kind of hole that adds both grade and tonnage at the next update.29

image6 2 The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

image3 5 The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

Behind it all is the largest program in company history: a fully funded 80,000 metres of drilling across 2026 and 2027, with three rigs turning and a Phase 4 campaign of up to 40,000 metres already underway.30 Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) has drilled 52,900 metres of its own since 2023 at a discovery cost of 2.5 cents per CuEq pound.31

98.2% Copper Recovery: The Number That De-Risks Everything Else

Grade only matters if you can get the metal out. On August 19, independent testwork by SLR Consulting returned a flotation recovery of 98.2% copper to a saleable rougher concentrate grading 23.7% copper, achieved after a coarse primary grind, with kinetics so fast they point to a very simple flotation circuit.32 The copper-gold stringer at B26 is clean chalcopyrite with no zinc reporting to it, which is precisely why the metallurgy behaves.

"These initial results demonstrate excellent copper recovery, rapid flotation kinetics and the production of a high-quality rougher copper concentrate, further increasing our confidence in the B26 project as we advance toward the Preliminary Economic Assessment."
— Dave Bernier, COO, Abitibi Metals33

Simple flowsheets mean lower capital, lower operating cost and fewer surprises in a maiden economic study. For Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF), the testwork was run on a composite nearly four times larger than the 2018 work and representative of the full 1,600 by 1,200 metre mining block, so the number is not a cherry-picked sample.34,35 Metallurgy, geotechnical work and environmental baseline studies are all feeding the maiden PEA the company is driving toward.36

And Then They Found Something New, 1.5 Kilometres West

On July 29, Abitibi Metals’ (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) first-ever systematic regional program at B26 delivered the headline every VMS geologist looks for: hole 1274-26-383 intersected a new potential VMS zinc-silver zone 1.5 kilometres west of the deposit, returning 14.25 metres of 1.13% zinc and 51.51 g/t silver, including 3.10 metres of 2.82% zinc and 120.64 g/t silver, at just 400 metres depth, in the same host rocks and alteration as B26 itself.37

Farther down the same hole came chalcopyrite stringers with black chlorite alteration, the signature of B26’s copper zone. In VMS camps, deposits cluster, and this architecture suggests a second lens with its own copper-gold core waiting to be vectored in.

A second target 4.5 kilometres northwest cut 332 g/t silver and 0.83 g/t gold over 1 metre where nothing had ever been drilled below 200 metres. Only three of seven priority targets have been tested. Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) plans downhole geophysics on every regional hole and a dedicated rig this winter.38

image1 6 The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

The Foran Playbook, Run by the People Who Wrote It

Every junior compares itself to a winner. Very few hire the winner’s builders. Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) did. Foran Mining took McIlvenna Bay, a polymetallic VMS deposit in a tier-one Canadian jurisdiction, from an overlooked resource to a C$3.8 billion takeover by Eldorado Gold that closed this April.39

Dave Bernier ran that build. As Foran’s Chief Operating Officer he took McIlvenna Bay from feasibility through construction toward commercial production, after senior roles at Pan American Silver and Dumas. In January he became COO of Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF).40 In July, Keith Gorman, another Foran alumnus with time at Kirkland Lake Gold, joined as CFO.41 And Ben Pullinger, who as CEO grew ATEX Resources from roughly a $50 million market cap to about $1.5 billion, signed on as SVP of Corporate Development and Growth.42

image8 3 The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

Look at that chart the way an acquirer would. Foran, at the development stage, commanded C$1.46 of enterprise value per CuEq pound. FireFly Metals, an earlier-stage Australian-listed VMS story, trades near C$0.34. Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) sits at about C$0.10 on the same measure.43 The gap is the opportunity, and the catalysts that historically close it, resource growth, metallurgy, a maiden economic study, an expanding team of mine builders, are exactly what is on the calendar.

image4 3 The Quebec Government Spent Two Decades and $30 Million Proving This Copper-Gold Deposit and One Junior Now Owns All of It

The M&A tape backs it up. Canadian mining M&A surged in 2025 and has kept running in 2026: Eldorado-Foran, Hudbay’s move on Arizona Sonoran to build a US copper hub, and mega-consolidation up the food chain with Anglo American and Teck.44 In his year-end letter, written as copper hit record highs, Deluce told shareholders the company’s job was to be ready for exactly this market.45 

There are very few multi-million-tonne, high-grade, 100%-owned polymetallic deposits left in private hands in Quebec. Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) controls one, plus the right of first refusal on the two properties beside it.46

Why are investors looking at Abitibi Metals?
Copper demand isn’t just trending higher, it’s accelerating. AI data centers, EVs, clean energy infrastructure, and global grid expansion are creating a structural, long-term need that no substitution can replace. And while giants scramble to secure feedstock, a tiny junior sits on one of Canada’s highest-grade undeveloped copper-gold deposits. Abitibi Metals (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) just delivered an updated copper-gold resource with nearly 1 billion pounds of copper equivalent and grades that rival billion-dollar names.

Who Owns It, and Who Just Bought In

In April, Discovery Silver, the C$6 billion-class gold and silver producer led by Tony Makuch and Eric Kallio, took a 9.9% strategic stake in a financing done at $0.58 per share,47 and the company closed $30.75 million in gross proceeds in May.48 The treasury now fully funds the 80,000-metre program and the path to a maiden PEA.49

The register is just as unusual as the asset. Roughly 60% of the shareholder base is held by fewer than ten holders: the Deluce family office with more than $14 million invested, Discovery Silver at 9.9%, Beedie Capital, a former cornerstone Foran investor, New Brunswick pension money and Québec Institutional Funds.50 The company has financed repeatedly without ever issuing a single warrant, which is close to unheard of at this stage, and it is why the stock carries limited overhang.

Add it up: a producer-grade strategic shareholder, a family office that keeps buying, Quebec institutional money, analyst coverage, and a clean capital structure. Alignment like this is usually the last thing a junior assembles. Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) built it first.

8 Reasons

AMQ Belongs on Your Watchlist Right Now

1

A government-proven deposit, now 100% owned. SOQUEM invested about $30 million over two decades before any public market ever priced B26. Abitibi consolidated it for staged consideration and a 1% NSR.51,52

2

25.3 million tonnes above 2% CuEq, still open. Abitibi Metals Corp.’s (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) resource is up 124% since 2023, open laterally and at depth, in the top tier of VMS deposits globally by size.53,54

3

Metallurgy that just de-risked the study. 98.2% copper recovery to a 23.7% rougher concentrate with a simple circuit.55

4

A brand new potential discovery beside the deposit: A potential second VMS lens 1.5 km west, in B26’s host rocks, from the first four regional holes Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) has ever drilled there.56

5

The Foran builders, in-house. Foran’s COO is now Abitibi’s COO, a Foran finance alumnus is CFO, and the executive who grew ATEX thirtyfold runs corporate development.

6

Copper leverage at 10 cents a pound. Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) carries an enterprise value of roughly C$0.10 per CuEq pound versus C$1.46 where Foran was acquired, with copper near record highs.

7

A fortress register and a full treasury. Discovery Silver at 9.9%, insiders and family office beyond $14 million, no warrants outstanding, and 80,000 fully funded metres ahead.

8

District consolidation optionality. A 10-year ROFR over Wagosic and Carheil positions Abitibi as the natural consolidator of the entire Selbaie Camp.57

The Team Turning B26 Into Quebec’s Next Development Story

Jonathon Deluce, Founder and CEO. Founded Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) in 2018 and optioned B26 in 2023. Part of the Deluce family office, best known for the airline business and a 25-year backer of resource companies, with more than $14 million invested alongside shareholders.

Dave Bernier, COO. The mine builder behind Foran’s McIlvenna Bay, from PFS to construction, with Pan American Silver and Dumas before that. Consulted for Abitibi, saw the Foran parallels, and asked to join full time.

Louis Gariépy, VP Exploration. Former VP Exploration of O3 Mining through its roughly C$200 million acquisition by Agnico Eagle, with three decades across Anglo American and IAMGOLD.

Ben Pullinger, SVP Corporate Development and Growth. Grew ATEX Resources from about a $50 million market cap to roughly $1.5 billion as CEO, and now brings that combined technical and capital-markets skill set to Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF).

Keith Gorman, CFO. Finance leadership across Foran, Kirkland Lake Gold and other producer-focused companies.

The advisory bench includes Victor Cantore of Amex Exploration, former BlackRock chief investment officer of fundamental equities Chris Leavy, Skeena co-founder Craig Parry, Eric Kallio and West Red Lake Gold’s Shane Williams.

What to Watch Over the Next 6 to 12 Months

Continuous assays: Three rigs on a Phase 4 program of up to 40,000 metres, feeding resource expansion in the western plunge and at depth.58

Metallurgy: Cleaner, locked-cycle and zinc-circuit results in the coming weeks, completing the Phase 2 program.59

Maiden PEA: Abitibi Metals’ (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) first economic study on B26, with geotechnical and environmental baseline work already underway.60

Winter 2027: Follow-up drilling and pulse EM on the new VMS zone west of B26 and the remaining regional targets.61

District consolidation: Any move on the Wagosic and Carheil ROFR, where SOQUEM has already made a new discovery.62,63

The Bottom Line

Strip the story to its parts. A high-grade, four-metal deposit the Quebec government spent twenty years proving. A resource that has grown 124% in under three years and is still open. Recoveries of 98.2% copper. A brand-new discovery next door. The Foran mine builders running the project, a $30.75 million treasury with no warrants, a strategic producer on the register, and an enterprise value of about a dime per copper-equivalent pound while the metal itself sets records.

The last time this combination appeared in a Canadian VMS story, it ended in a C$3.8 billion takeover. Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) is not promising that outcome, and no one can. But it is running the same playbook, with the same people, in an even better copper market.

“We believe B26 has the potential to become the cornerstone asset of a much larger regional development platform, and this transaction positions us to evaluate those opportunities from a position of strength.” – Jonathon Deluce, CEO, Abitibi Metals, June 11, 202664

Want to stay ahead of every Abitibi Metals (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) development as the assays, the metallurgy and the maiden PEA roll in?

Subscribe to the Trading Whisperer Newsletter to review the corporate presentation and track every milestone as Abitibi Metals advances B26 and the Selbaie Camp

Why are investors looking at Abitibi Metals?
Copper demand isn’t just trending higher, it’s accelerating. AI data centers, EVs, clean energy infrastructure, and global grid expansion are creating a structural, long-term need that no substitution can replace. And while giants scramble to secure feedstock, a tiny junior sits on one of Canada’s highest-grade undeveloped copper-gold deposits. Abitibi Metals (CSE:AMQ) (OTCQB:AMQFF) just delivered an updated copper-gold resource with nearly 1 billion pounds of copper equivalent and grades that rival billion-dollar names.

Full Disclaimer

The B26 Project is at an early stage of exploration & resource development and does not currently have a mineral reserve estimate, feasibility study, or demonstrated economic viability. Any references or comparisons to other mineral projects including Foran Mining’s McIlvenna Bay are intended solely to illustrate potential geological analogues. Such comparisons should not be interpreted as implying that the B26 Project will achieve similar results, development timelines, or economic outcomes.

Projects at more advanced stages may have completed technical studies, established mineral reserves, or be under development or in production, which differentiates them from early-stage exploration assets. There is no guarantee that the B26 Project will advance to a similar stage.

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