The code for modern exploration has been cracked at the Whitehorse Copper Project – a past-producing and large skarn system that stretches across a 35km by 5km district with over 30 separate prospects that contain shallow, high-grade mineralization – and total historical production of 10.5Mt at 1.5% Cu and 0.75g/t Au between 1967 and 1982, which likely represents a drop in the ocean compared to the economically compelling and significant resource on its way to being defined. At just CAD$130 million market cap with CAD$20 million in cash for a CAD$100 million enterprise value – Gladiator Metals (TSX-V: GLAD) is backed by 1832 Asset Management and Macquarie, and is an extremely rare find of an advanced, high-grade copper project that has serious potential for scale in a mineral-rich historic jurisdiction. Having just completed a 50,000m diamond drilling campaign last year and with a long-term resource target of 100Mt, GLAD has already commenced an even larger program this year – and is well on the way to proving up a resource that post the 2026 drill season will be compared to the 38.6Mt at 2.02% CuEq deposit belonging to CAD$3.03 billion EV Foran Mining Corporation (FOM.TO). The whole street from Morgan Stanley to Bloomberg to Wood Mackenzie is forecasting around a 600kt deficit in supply during 2026 that will then worsen almost every year through to 2040, potentially hitting 10Mt in 2040. Having just smashed through US$13,400/t and with famed commodities analyst Max Layton from Citi seeing serious upside, copper M&A is lighting up the sector all the way from Fortescue (ASX:FMG) paying $151 million for a South American explorer to Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) considering taking over Glencore (LSE: GLEN) in a US$260 billion deal – leaving a short window of opportunity to take exposure to the incredibly scarce amount of undervalued projects yet to explode in valuation.
The flagship prospect Cowley Park has 3km of strike, where over 400 drill holes have been through a 1,200m long, 450m wide and 300m deep section that is strongly mineralized and open in every direction, containing assays such as 98m at 1.49% Cu from 103m including 20m at 5.53% Cu from 145m, 89.61m at 1.89% Cu from 26.21m, 43.28m at 2.24% Cu from 93.27m, and 26m at 3.60% Cu from 103m including 11.52m at 7.54% Cu from 113.38m. The same geophysical anomalies seen here have been identified but in a much larger setting at the Great Southern prospect – where drilling is planned in the first quarter of 2026. There are also the Little and Middle Chief prospects that have previously mined 121.5kt of copper, 225koz of gold and 2.84Moz of silver, which is where there are assays from unmined areas of 49.83m at 3.06% Cu from 70.26m, 54.10m at 2.05% Cu from 77.42m and 41.15m at 2.22% Cu from 87.48m. 12km North of here is the Arctic Chief prospect, a 2km long mineralized trend where GLAD recently hit 25m at 0.59% Cu, 1.24g/t Au and 4.59g/t Ag from 44m, including 14m at 0.82% Cu, 2.06g/t Au and 7.39g/t Ag from 55m, including 6m at 1.11% Cu, 4.06g/t Au and 13.23g/t Ag from 63m. There’s also the 7km long HAT trend, with assays such as 10.54m at 4.99% Cu from 124.39m and 9.63m at 1.14% Cu from 108.51m, including 2.93m at 3.13% Cu from 115.21m.
We watched GLAD closely over the back half of last year as they drilled at Cowley Park while collecting geophysical data on the other prospects at the Whitehorse Copper Project, the successful drilling of which has outlined the perfect blueprint to implement across the entire project. The latest demonstration of IP chargeability and gravity anomalies correlating with skarn mineralization was over at the new Cub Trend, which now has 1,200m of strike with outstanding hits of 44.2m at 1.69% Cu, 0.93g/t Au and 15.39g/t Ag from 173.8m, including 27m at 2.56% Cu, 1.44g/t Au and 23.85g/t Ag from 183m – confirms the validity of the geophysical targeting strategy and paves the way for GLAD to systematically drill the significant number of now extremely high-priority targets across the project.
Given GLAD is racing towards defining a resource and assessing development pathways, it’s worthwhile examining comparable TSX-listed copper companies who have published a deposit and are in the feasibility or development stage. CAD$3.03 billion EV Foran Mining Corporation (FOM.TO) has a total of 38.6Mt at 2.02% CuEq at its Canadian project and is almost finished construction, CAD$1.3 billion EV Marimaca Copper Corporation (MARI.TO) has 179Mt at 0.42% Cu at its Chilean project and has completed a DFS, CAD$992 million EV Arizona Sonoran Copper Company (ASCU.TO) has 632Mt at 0.58% Cu at its American project and has completed a PFS, and CAD$572 million EV Meridian Mining (MNO.TO) has 70.1Mt at 0.33% Cu, 0.56g/t Au and 1.31g/t Ag at its Brazilian project, and has completed a PFS.
As GLAD drilled extensions to the main mineralized zone of Cowley Park, the company has continued to hit strong copper grades that also include gold, silver and molybdenum mineralization, which represent a strong opportunity to significantly increase the already attractive economics of the project given gold is above US$5,000/oz, silver is around US$80/oz and molybdenum trades between US$55,000-US$63,000/t.
GLAD has done a brilliant job of chasing strike extensions of the groundbreaking November 2024 hit of 98m at 1.49% Cu, including 14m at 7.67% Cu from 145m, and just two weeks ago the company came out with 32 assays which included huge extensional hits that discovered a new subparallel mineralized zone, which in combination with geophysics allows for the addition of 600m of highly prospective strike. The intercepts include 92m at 1.03% Cu, 0.11g/t Au, 6.38g/t Ag and 393ppm Mo from 2m, 61m at 1.25% Cu, 0.13g/t Au, 8.97g/t Ag and 442ppm Mo from 108m, as well as 14m at 1.29% Cu, 0.16g/t Au, 10.36g/t Ag and 656ppm Mo from 149m.
Some of the fantastic hits from 2025 are from a variety of surrounding areas, such as 49.5m at 1.17% Cu, 0.26g/t Au, 7.91g/t Ag and 887ppm Mo from 57.5m, including 14m at 3.13% Cu, 0.69g/t Au, 20.09g/t Ag and 1,041 ppm Mo from 67m, as well as 119.0m at 0.84% Cu and 562ppm Mo, including 63m at 1.06% Cu, 0.13g/t Au, 9.44g/t Ag and 741ppm Mo from 48m, including 20m at 1.71% Cu, 0.19g/t Au, 15.36g/t Ag and 1,139ppm Mo from 91m, as well as 17.5m at 1.67% Cu, 0.42g/t Au, 13.31g/t Ag and 882ppm Mo from 61.5m.
GLAD completed a whopping 50,000m of drilling in 2025 at just CAD$250/m, and will keep the same 4 rigs working throughout 2026 to complete at least another 50,000m – so there will be a consistent barrage of news flow throughout the year. The aggressive drilling program planned for 2026 will focus on testing strike extensions and resource definition drilling at Cowley Park while simultaneously testing the nearby lookalike geophysical anomalies at Cowley South and Great Southern, as well as conducting continued exploration drilling at the Chiefs Trends, Best Chance, Arctic Chief and Cub Trend.
As if these vast amounts of skarn mineralization that are rife throughout the project weren’t enough, GLAD intersected a 180m wide zone of disseminated bornite and chalcopyrite hosted in altered granodiorite – indicating the potential for a massive porphyry system underneath that acted as a feeder to the skarn above. GLAD will be imminently following up on the main assay that hit this system, which was 55m at 0.70% Cu, 0.01g/t Au, 2.61g/t Ag and 154ppm Mo from 176m, including 21.90m at 1.27% Cu, 0.02g/t Au, 5.27g/t Ag and 300ppm Mo from 199.1m.
GLAD’s solid group of institutional investors have backed this world class project and proven management team, which includes CEO Jason Bontempo and Chairman Darren Devine, Director Shawn Khunkhun who is the CEO of Dolly Varden Silver (TSX-V: DV) – which recently merged with Contango Ore (NYSE American: CTGO) in an US$812 million deal, as well as former principal geologist of First Quantum Minerals Marcus Harden and 7Moz Wallaby Gold Mine geologist Kell Nielsen. On the register is 1832 Asset Management, Macquarie, Ixios Asset Management, Mackenzie Investments and Orimco. It’s a huge vote of confidence when 1832 gets involved in a stock, and they are also a shareholder in our USA antimony and tungsten pick (ASX: AT4) and African gold pick (ASX: MPK).
The set up for development is perfect, with existing road access, cheap hydro power, rail transport and lots of local labor. On top of there being a solid 15 years of major mining activity, the consolidation of the tenements after production ceased was actually done by members of the Kluane First Nation (KFN) led by Jim Coyne, who then vended the projects into GLAD and now provides the project’s drilling services through Kluane Drilling.
Below is plan map of Cowley Park that depicts the assays GLAD has hit throughout a year of intense drilling, with everything being open along strike and at depth:
Source: GLAD
The prolific gravity anomaly that has been extended by a massive 2km in a north-south direction and 1.2km in an east-west direction can be visualized below, which shows a similar response at Great Southern and Cowley South as what was seen at Cowley Park:
Source: GLAD
A side-by-side view of the IP chargeability of these prospects can be seen below, which excitingly shows an intensely strong response at Great Southern on the left, far stronger than Cowley Park on the right – which has produced stellar drilling results. GLAD will be drilling at Great Southern in early 2026:
Source: GLAD
A Multi-Decade Outbreak in Copper has Just Begun
The impending structural deficit in copper supply has been a strong point of focus since at least 2021, when the market became obsessed with the commodity super-cycle and covid stimulus flooded small caps with liquidity. Most of the actual shortage forecasts were blown out to 2025/2026, and artificial intelligence was not yet a focal point, but an October squeeze that came from a shortage in LME inventory induced market pandemonium and sent copper to a new all-time high – resulting in sustained interest in the face of growing demand from electrification, renewable energy and electric vehicles. The interest rate hikes that followed in 2022 as well as China’s property crisis certainly dampened the thematic for a while, but the threat of a prolonged supply shortfall lingered – and is now a confronting reality without clear solutions.
S&P Global’s comprehensive analysis of global copper discoveries reveals that there were only 258 major copper discoveries between 1990 and 2024, with only 6 in the final 5 years. Latin America accounted for 56% of total discoveries while Asia was 20% – but only 10% came from North America, much of which is confined to regulatorily challenged projects such as Resolution and Pebble. Shockingly – 162 still haven’t entered production, 132 of which are yet to complete a feasibility study. GLAD represents a very real and rare opportunity for a major copper discovery in an ideal jurisdiction that can actually get into production in a reasonable timeframe.
This crisis is compounded with a variety of factors leading to significantly decreased output from the world’s largest miners, which Deutsche Bank estimates will record an overall 3% drop in production during 2025 and further decreases in 2026. Anglo American and Glencore are struggling to raise production due to declining ore grades and water supply issues, Escondida has seen a litany of disruptions from mine accidents that have killed people and repeated protests, Grasberg had a mudslide that killed seven people and has shut it down for 4 months so far, and Cobre Panama has been shut down since late 2023 after a political upheaval and mass anti-mining protest.
In September 2022, Goldman Sachs outlined the need for a US$13,000/t copper price in order to stimulate the US$150 billion in growth capex that must go into the ground before 2030, if there is any chance of meeting demand, while also noting concern around 50% of the shovel ready projects they assessed in 2018 extending their initial production dates by an average of three years during this four year period – worsening the already diabolical 17 years it takes to bring a copper project from discovery into production. The incentive price has been reached, but time is fast running out – and there just aren’t ample projects to invest in.
Below is a graph depicting the trajectory of the forecast supply gap, which is expected to reach 10Mt by 2040. If the beginnings of 2026’s anticipated supply deficit of 600Kt can cause record copper prices above US$13,000/t – then a 10Mt deficit would likely be catastrophic:
Source: S&P Global
The net change in global copper demand by region, broken up into key demand sectors, can be visualized below, highlighting the extreme growth in demand from energy transition and electrification, as well as AI and data centers – to the point of equaling and surpassing core economic growth in all locations:
Source: S&P Global
It is becoming clear that the perfect storm of a supply crisis is forming in the midst of serious fundamental factors that are becoming too late to fix, while demand is going nowhere but up. Gladiator’s relentless work has confirmed that most of the copper in this district of Canada is still unmined, and the historic operations scratched only the surface of the Whitehorse Copper Project’s potential – having been constrained to shallow pits and short underground developments. When GLAD acquired the projects, there was very limited drilling beyond the immediate pit areas – despite mineralization being open in all directions. As GLAD continues to test these extremely large stretches of the known skarn horizons, they keep hitting strong and continuous mineralization that add so many exciting dimensions to the potential of this project – and 2026 is set to be the biggest year of exploration yet.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and marketing purposes only, and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to invest. All opinions expressed are our own. We may receive fees or other forms of compensation in connection with the publication of this content, and may own shares in any of the mentioned companies. Please do your own research and seek professional advice before making any investment decisions.