The follow-up drilling at New Boston is now fully permitted. VR Resources confirmed on October 20 that the Nevada Bureau of Land Management has approved both its expanded Notice of Intent drill permit and the associated reclamation bond for the New Boston moly-copper-tungsten-silver porphyry project in west-central Nevada — doubling the permitted drill sites at the Jeep Mine and clearing drilling to proceed.
- Permitted sites doubled, from 8 to 16, at the Jeep Mine in the western part of the New Boston porphyry-skarn system. The amendment was submitted September 11 and approved September 16; the bond was submitted October 6 and approved October 9.
- The permit follows up drill hole NB26-003, completed in June under the original March 6, 2026 NOI permit, which returned 317 metres at 0.77% CuEq starting at surface, above 419 metres at 0.48% CuEq, within 881 metres (2,892 feet) of continuous polymetallic stockwork veining — figures from the company's August 26, 2026 release.
- VR completed site visits on October 8–9 to inspect all 16 sites and scope logistics. Planned sites include J5, about 300 metres east of NB26-003, and J10, about 500 metres east, where the release describes polyphase stockwork quartz veins in recrystallized Triassic limestone with garnet-rich skarn alteration.
- The company maps mineralized sheeted veins striking 2,100 metres east–west across Jeep Mine through the East Zone, within a broader 3–4 kilometre skarn and porphyry system, with existing road access to virtually all permitted sites and Highway 95 infrastructure nearby.
Why the permit is the story
An 881-metre hole of continuous veining is an invitation, not an answer — it says a large system is present at Jeep Mine, and almost nothing yet about how grade is distributed through it. That is the work the 16 sites are for: step-outs east along strike at J5 and J10, and tests at depth, using the geochemical and alteration vectors from NB26-003 and the 3D-array DCIP geophysical survey VR ran in 2023, which shows chargeability values of 15–21 mV/V at Jeep Mine. The speed of the permitting matters to the schedule — four business days for the amendment — because it keeps a fall follow-up program possible rather than pushing first step-outs into next season. Separately, financial coverage of the release notes the follow-up is funded from the company's CA$7.5 million private placement closed September 17, 2026; the permit release itself does not state a hole count or metre total for the coming program.
The honesty box
The NB26-003 intervals are the company's reported results from a single hole, released in August; the copper-equivalent figures combine molybdenum, copper, tungsten and silver values under the company's own CuEq methodology, which readers should check in that August release rather than treating CuEq as a copper grade. One hole, however long, does not establish continuity, a mineral resource, or economic viability — New Boston has no mineral resource estimate in this release — and a drill permit authorizes exploration drilling only, not mining. The Qualified Person for the technical information, President and CEO Dr. Michael Gunning, is identified by the company as non-independent.
What to watch
VR's promised program update — how many holes, in what order, and whether the first step-outs east of NB26-003 keep the stockwork veining and the tungsten-bearing upper interval going along strike.