This Microcap Just Pulled Core From One of Copper's Last Frontiers

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Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Copper demand tied to electrification, grid buildout and data center construction has pushed explorers into jurisdictions that barely registered a decade ago. Frontier ground can offer scale and very little competition. It also comes with seasons, access and infrastructure problems that dictate when a rig can even turn, which means geology is only half the challenge.

Shares of Angkor Resources Corp. (TSX-V: ANK) (OTCQB: ANKOF) are higher Wednesday after the company reported completing the first phase of drilling at its Andong Bor copper-gold target in Cambodia. Angkor finished 1,099 meters across three diamond drill holes in mid-July at Thmei North, a one-square-kilometer copper anomaly, out of a planned 2,800-meter program.

No assays have been reported. What the company is describing is what its geologists saw in the core. VP Exploration Dennis Ouellette said two of the three holes encountered porphyry and skarn mineralization over the 400 meters each was drilled, with portions of the skarn described as especially well mineralized. The third hole contained a run of more than 200 meters of continuous pyrite mineralization at concentrations up to 20%.

Pyrite is an iron sulfide rather than a copper or gold mineral, so that figure describes the appearance of the core rather than its economic value. Grades will not be known until the core is logged, cut, sampled and returned from the lab. Angkor says logging is underway over the next few weeks, with selected intervals to be dispatched for assay as the program progresses.

The program was built around Cambodia's growing season. Angkor drilled the first three holes ahead of the heaviest rains and plans to resume with a minimum of 1,700 meters in early 2027, once fields are dry and crops have been harvested, easing access and limiting crop damage.

The eastward hole orientation reflects a model refined from 2025 drilling, which indicated the structures controlling mineralization strike north-northwest and dip steeply west. In Angkor's modified copper porphyry model, the best mineralization occurs within potassic-altered sediments adjacent to feldspar porphyry diorite dikes ranging from a few meters to tens of meters wide. Drilling east is intended to maximize intersections as holes pass through alternating intrusive and sedimentary rock.

The Andong Bor license covers 100.28 square kilometers across Cambodia's Oddar Meanchey and Banteay Meanchey provinces. Angkor holds two Cambodian mineral exploration licenses, both in their first two-year renewal term. Its EnerCam subsidiary also holds Block VIII, a 4,095-square-kilometer onshore oil and gas license where the company completed 2D seismic in 2025 and plans Cambodia's first privately financed onshore exploratory wells under a production sharing contract.

Shares of ANK are up 2.9% to C$0.36 in Wednesday morning trading, while ANKOF is ahead 9.2% to $0.2565.

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