Domestic Metals Corp: Drilling at Smart Creek Set to Begin in Late August

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Domestic Metals (DMCU) announced that its fully funded and permitted, 9,000m drilling program at the Smart Creek Project is set to commence in late August. The program will encompass between 6-8 drill holes. The start of Domestic Metals’ inaugural drilling campaign marks the culmination of high impact programs conducted on site over the last two years. These recent programs include a 27-line-km geophysics IP survey (2026) and an extensive field program undertaken in 2025. The upcoming drilling campaign is also underpinned by the ownership of a treasure trove of historic drilling data. Combining the historic data with recently completed geophysics and mapping surveys, management hopes to vector towards the center of the copper porphyry which might yield assay results surpassing the impressive 109m grading 0.75% Cu that Rio Tinto attained on site in 2022. The Smart Creek Project is located 50km northwest of Montana’s Butte Mine Complex which has historically produced 24.8B lbs of copper. Noting the highly prospective nature of the Project, we maintain our C$0.75 per share price objective. The first assays will be expected in 6-8 weeks following the start of the campaign.

DRILLING PROGRAM TO COMMENCE IN LATE AUGUST

The fully permitted and financed drilling program at Smart Creek will encompass up to 9,000m spread over 6-8 drill holes. Drill targets are have been identified across the Smart Creek Target (three drill holes targeted between 600m-800m) and the Sunrise Mine Target (four drill holes targeted between 600m-800m). Armed with data from historic drill campaigns and the most recently completed geophysics surveys, high priority targets have been identified. The total budget has been earmarked at C$3.5M, which would almost ensure that the 60% earn-in terms with Rio will have been met by program-end. The planned drill holes will require between 45-60 days to complete. The drill program will target numerous types of mineralization ranging from high-grade porphyry copper targets to CRD/skarn targets.

Spanning a very large 12km by 10km area, the Smart Creek Project has benefitted from numerous historic drilling and work programs, culminating today with a total of 40 drill holes on site. With every subsequent work program, a combination of geophysics, sampling, mapping and drilling has lead to the identification of four distinct target zones and increasingly higher grade assay results, extending over longer intervals. This culminated in 2022 when Rio Tinto drilled its standout SMCR0022 drill hole which returned 109m at 0.75% Cu, including 81m at 0.96% cu and 17m at 2.25% Cu. The Domestic Minerals team has since conducted an aggressive geophysics, mapping and sampling campaign and has identified strategic drilling targets on the Project. The targets remain varied as the Project is indicating the potential for a large porphyry deposit, a carbonate replacement deposit (CRD)/Skarn deposit, copper leach targets and epithermal gold targets. Combining the historic drilling results with the recently completed geophysics and mapping surveys, management is confident that the selected drilling targets will be vectoring much closer the center of a porphyry or a high-grade zone. If this were to be hit, a company-making assay result surpassing that from SMCR0022 will likely be achieved. One can speculate that if successful, an intercept upwards of 150m grading 1.5% Cu wouldn’t sound unrealistic. Domestic Metals certainly has the experienced technical team to test this theory.

THE SMART CREEK PROJECT

Located 100km southeast of Missoula, Montana, the Smart Creek Project was acquired in August 2024 and is an earn-in joint-venture with Rio Tinto, whereby Rio will retain a 40% stake in the asset. Located in Granite County, the Smart Creek Project is considered to be highly prospective for porphyry copper as well as copper-gold-silver enriched carbonate replacement deposits (CRD).  The Project consists of 570 unpatented federal mining claims (4,072 Ha) and 45 patented claims (312 Ha). The property is located approximately 16km north of Philipsburg, Montana and is road accessible year-round.

2026 GEOPHYSICS PROGRAM: TWENTY-SEVEN-LINE-KM IP SURVEY

This past spring, the company completed an induced polarization (IP) program consisting of 27 line-kms of electrical geophysics at the Smart Creek Project. The objective of the geophysics program was to expand the footprint of previous IP survey collected by Rio Tinto to further delineate drill targets ahead of the planned diamond drilling program. The IP survey was key seeing that large copper porphyry deposits contain large sulfide footprints. These sulfide footprints contain chargeable material which are detectable via IP survey program. Essentially, there is a spatial association between the location of the porphyry mineralization and the chargeability footprint. Generally, large porphyry deposits occur either on the anomaly, beside the anomaly or sometimes even below the anomaly. The IP survey helps with finding the hot spots (ie, the areas of high grade copper).

When looking for higher concentrations of sulfides, higher mV/V values over extended lengths are looked for. Generally, values above 30 mV/V near ~1,500m+ are typically found in copper porphyry environments. In each of targeted areas on the Smart Creek Project, near such values were attained or surpassed.

CONCLUSION & VALUATION

With currently ~C$6.0M in treasury from a recent financing (the final tranche of a 12.080M unit offering issued at C$0.28 per unit closed on April 14, an additional placement of 10.973M units at C$0.28 was closed on May 5) the company has plenty in treasury to execute on the planned drilling campaign. Given that subsequent drilling and analysis from work programs have continued to define the potential mineralization envelope, we feel that the chosen targets for the upcoming drilling campaign have been vectored to the most strategic locations of interest. Building on drill hole SMCR0022, if the center of the copper porphyry would be hit, grades and lengths surpassing that of 109m grading 0.75% Cu should be attained. One can speculate that if successful, an intercept upwards of 150m grading 1.5% Cu at Smart Creek wouldn’t sound unrealistic. Much like the re-rate experienced by Hercules Metals post HER24-02 drill hole (185m grading 0.84% Cu), we feel the same can occur for Domestic Metals. Our 12-month target price of C$0.75 would reflect the magnitude of such an occurrence (arguably still on the conservative side).

We feel that the risk would certainly be on the upside for a successful drilling campaign. Domestic Metals has both the needed data and accomplished team to validate its theory at Smart Creek and locate the center of the copper porphyry. The drill program will target numerous types of mineralization ranging from high-grade porphyry copper targets to CRD/skarn targets. All planned drill holes will require between 45-60 days to complete. Assay results will be expected between 6-8 weeks following the start of the drilling campaign. For more detailed information, refer to our initiation of coverage report dated May 4, 2026.