Aruma Resources (ASX:AAJ) has significantly expanded its Tillex Copper-Silver Project in Ontario’s Timmins mining district, while locking in a $3.5M placement to accelerate exploration.
The deal adds 94 contiguous mineral claims covering around 16km², increasing Tillex to ~18.6km² and extending the interpreted prospective trend to ~2.4km.
Aruma isn’t simply adding hectares. The new ground brings known copper occurrences, historical gold anomalies and largely untested electromagnetic conductors into the portfolio.
Figure 1: Expanded Tillex Project area showing existing project area (red) and the newly acquired ground (black shaded area), with known mineral occurrences in the newly acquired claims.
A bigger Tillex
The acquisition wraps around the existing Tillex tenure and gives Aruma greater control over interpreted extensions of the same geological and structural trends it’s already targeting.
The expanded ground is prospective for VMS and stratabound copper-silver mineralisation, with historical work identifying several areas worthy of another look.
At the Falcon Prospect, limited historical drilling intersected 1m @ 0.49% Cu, while Russell Creek returned massive sulphide mineralisation grading up to 1.04% Cu and 0.15% Zn.
Yet much of the new tenure has seen little systematic modern exploration.
Managing Director Grant Ferguson said the acquisition “transforms the scale” of Tillex and significantly expands its exploration pipeline.
Figure 2: Expanded Tillex Project area showing existing project area (black) and newly acquired ground (yellow), with known mineral occurrences and historical drilling collar locations.
Copper with a gold kicker
There’s another angle emerging.
The new claims also contain several historical gold occurrences, including Foster Farm and Watabeag.
Foster Farm returned a historical till sample of 2,200ppb gold, with visible gold also reported in the sample. Watabeag meanwhile contains historical evidence of sulphides, quartz-carbonate veining and alteration, but has seen little meaningful exploration for more than four decades.
Adding to the address, part of the new tenure sits ~6.3km west of Alamos Gold’s Golden Arrow open pit.
For Aruma, it adds a second exploration front without distracting from the main copper-silver strategy.
$3.5M to push exploration
Aruma has also secured firm commitments for a $3.5M placement at $0.0045 per share, giving it fresh capital to attack the larger footprint.
Funds will support the acquisition, continued Phase 2 drilling and new exploration across the expanded ground.
That starts with reconnaissance and sampling this quarter, followed by airborne magnetics and EM surveys designed to turn the historical clues into modern drill targets.
Meanwhile, the existing ~3,600m Phase 2 diamond drilling program at Tillex is progressing.
What’s next
Aruma has plenty of moving parts heading into the remainder of 2026.
Phase 2 drilling continues, while exploration begins across the newly acquired ground. The immediate objective will be to rank the best copper and gold targets before follow-up drilling.
With 2.4km of interpreted prospective trend now under its control and cash to work with, Aruma has given itself considerably more ground to test, and the funding to get after it.
