Strategic Metals Ltd. reports that it has terminated the Option Agreement (the "Agreement") on the Hopper copper-gold project with Alpha Copper Corp. Upon termination, Strategic regains full ownership of the Project, without any underlying royalty interest. The Project consists of 365 mineral claims covering a 74 km2 area in southern Yukon, within the Traditional Territory of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations.

Exploration targets at Hopper, which covers a copper-gold porphyry and skarn system, are fully permitted and accessible via a network of roads and trails. Hopper lies within the Dawson Range Gold Belt, a metallogenic province that hosts several major deposits, including Western Copper and Gold Corporation's Casino porphyry copper-gold deposit, located 190 km to the north-northwest. Mineral occurrences on the property, which collectively make up the Hopkins North porphyry target and the Copper Castle skarn target, are associated with a 4 by 6 km intrusion referred to as the Hopper Pluton.

Dating of the pluton has yielded a Late Cretaceous age that is consistent with most mineralization along the belt, including the Casino deposit. The Copper Castle target covers at least 10, stacked skarn horizons that are partially delineated along a 1,200 m strike length south of the Hopper Pluton. The mineralized horizon are layered throughout a known vertical section approximately 425 m thick.

The skarns have been only partially delineated by trenching, percussion and diamond drilling, soil geochemistry and geophysical surveying, and remains open down dip and along strike to the south. Recent drill results from the Copper Castle target include 1.41% copper and 0.532 g/t gold over 22.28 m from HOP21-01 and 1.87% copper and 1.04 g/t gold over 15.27 m from HOP22-03. The Hopkins North target covers porphyry-type copper-gold mineralization identified within a 650 by 2,300 m area, which is associated with late phases of the Hopper Pluton.

Much of this prospective area is heavily vegetated and blanketed by various depths of overburden, and the target is largely untested. Historical chip sampling from trenches at the porphyry target reportedly yielded 0.24% over 45.72 m1. In 2011, a program of very short, widely spaced, vertical reverse-circulation drilling was performed over the overburden covered plateau.

Notably, several of the holes bottomed in copper mineralization. In 2015, a single diamond drill hole tested Hopkins North and returned a weighted average grade of 0.17% copper over 162.85 m. A follow-up hole in 2021, collared 320 m to the southeast, yielded 0.22% copper over 114.38 m from surface (HOP21-06). A third hole, HOP22-07, directed at the same target, returned an intercept of 0.12% copper over 214 m. Mineralization within the porphyry consists of both vein-controlled and disseminated chalcopyrite, with lesser pyrite, pyrrhotite, magnetite and molybdenite.

The best drill intersections to date comprise chlorite-altered monzonite and porphyry dykes, with zones of vein-controlled potassic alteration, indicating proximity to an untested, higher-temperature porphyry centre and the potential to discover stronger copper and gold grades. Several other targets on the property have seen minor work, including a complementary skarn target to Copper Castle on the northern side of the Hopper Pluton.