Rackla Metals (TSX-V:RAK) has begun drilling at its Lentung Tungsten Project in Canada‘s Northwest Territories, marking the first drill work on the property since 1982.
Lentung was first explored in 1976 by Union Carbide, now part of the Dow Chemical Company, following the discovery of tungsten more than a decade earlier.
Over the next six years, Union Carbide carried out intensive exploration, including 26,900m of diamond drilling, and advanced the project to the prefeasibility stage. No drilling has been conducted at Lentung since 1982.
Rackla entered the project in late 2025 with plans to restart exploration. Lentung is located in the same region as Fireweed Metals’ (TSX-V:FWZ) Mactung Project and the past-producing Cantung Mine, once a major source of tungsten outside China.
Crews are now on site to begin a 4,000m diamond drill program, forming part of a broader 10,000m campaign planned for 2026.
The diamond drilling is designed to confirm historical exploration results and establish the geological and assay database required to complete an NI 43-101 technical report for Lentung.
Initial drilling will test the grade, continuity, and geometry of known tungsten mineralisation to validate the historical work and support the re-establishment of a resource under modern exploration standards.
Rackla will also target extensions of known mineralisation and deeper high-grade tungsten zones identified through historical scout drilling elsewhere along the project’s 15km-long tungsten belt.
In addition to diamond drilling, Rackla plans to complete 6,000m of reverse circulation (RC) drilling, focused on infilling and expanding tungsten mineralisation within the Central Zone. The RC rig is scheduled to mobilise to Lentung this week.
“Getting the drills turning at Lentung is an important milestone for Rackla. This is the first drilling on the property in more than four decades and gives us the opportunity to test a substantial body of excellent historic work with modern drilling, assaying, and geological techniques,” CEO Simon Ridgway says.
“With approximately 10,000m of drilling planned, we expect to provide a substantial amount of new information on the scale, grade, and continuity of the Lentung tungsten system in the coming months.”
In preparation for drilling, Rackla completed several supporting exploration programs over the summer, including ground-based gravity and drone-based magnetic surveys covering the Central Zone, Far West Zone, and CAC Valley.
Processing and 3D inversion modelling of the survey data are underway and will be used to refine existing drill targets and identify potential extensions or additional mineralised bodies.
The company is also continuing to retrieve, over-box, and catalogue the extensive historical Union Carbide drill core stored at Lentung.
Re-logging and selective resampling of the core are expected to provide additional geological and analytical information to complement the 2026 drilling program.
Rackla Metals is focused on tungsten, gold, and rare earth mineral exploration in the Tombstone Gold-Tungsten Belt of eastern Yukon and western Northwest Territories.
Write to Jackson Chen at Mining.com.au
Image: Rackla Metals
