Rackla Metals flagship project is the Lentung tungsten project (previously known as Lened) in the western Northwest Territories, roughly 60 km north of the past-producing Cantung mine. The conversation covers the historic Union Carbide drilling on the property, the 2026 drill program now underway, financing, permitting, and the risks tied to relocating and confirming a decades-old deposit.
TL;DR
Rackla staked the Lentung property after finding it held a historic, non-compliant tungsten resource drilled by Union Carbide between 1977 and 1982 (about 27,000 metres across 178 holes), which was never brought back into production because tungsten prices collapsed. CEO Simon Ridgway said the company is now building a 49-person camp and running a 10,000-metre program (4,000 m diamond drilling to twin historic holes, 6,000 m reverse circulation) with first assays expected roughly five weeks after drilling starts, which he said would begin about a week from the interview date. He said Rackla has about C$13 million in the treasury, no near-term need to raise money, and is targeting a resource of 2 to 3 million MTUs of tungsten from this first phase, with the goal of an NI 43-101 resource by the first quarter of next year.
What have they done for shareholders lately?
Ridgway said Rackla acquired the historic Union Carbide dataset from a Yukon prospector, Ron Bedell, staked the Lentung property once it became available after a Nahanni National Park boundary adjustment, and has since been compiling and re-boxing the roughly 27,000 metres of historic core left on site. He said the company obtained its drill and camp permits for the 49-person camp within six weeks of applying, has an agreement in place with the Sahtu, and is in discussions with three other First Nations groups in the area. He also noted the company closed a financing in late May and mobilized a diamond rig and a reverse circulation rig to the property ahead of the 2026 program.
How much money do they have and what are they spending it on?
Ridgway said Rackla has about C$13 million in the treasury after raising C$3.5 million in flow-through financing in late May at 21.5 cents per unit, with a half warrant attached exercisable at 20 cents for one year. He said the flow-through money is earmarked for this year’s drilling, while the remaining roughly C$9 to C$9.5 million of hard money will go toward engineering studies, road permitting work, and archaeological and environmental studies. He estimated general and administrative costs at roughly C$50,000 to C$70,000 a month, shared across three companies he leads, plus about C$500,000 for marketing this year if drill results are positive.
Upcoming catalysts
Technical: diamond drilling was expected to start about a week after the interview and run into late October, twinning historic Union Carbide holes, followed by reverse circulation drilling to extend zones up and down dip; first assays were expected in roughly five weeks; metallurgical test work, including a possible bulk sample, was expected in August with results in September or October. Operational: recovery and re-sampling of the historic core, and geophysical surveys (gravity, LiDAR/mag) to help define the deposit. Corporate: Ridgway said the company plans to pursue a road permit application by year end if the resource work supports it, aims for an NI 43-101 resource by the first quarter of next year, and is considering an OTC listing in the US once drilling confirms results.
Risks
CEO Simon Ridgway flagged the road access permit as a specific near-term risk, since roughly 200 metres of the planned access road falls inside the Nahanni park boundary and requires a separate approval from Parks Canada and the Northwest Territories government. He also pointed to the risk of locating and accurately twinning the 45-year-old Union Carbide drill holes, since no ground markers remain, and acknowledged geological uncertainty around how consistent the mineralized zone is along strike and down dip. He noted metallurgy remains largely untested at Lentung, and separately mentioned that some First Nations groups in the region have raised concerns about the pace of reclamation at the nearby Cantung mine site, which he said is a different, unrelated legacy liability.
Rackla Metals CEO Interview
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