ARRAS MINERALS OUTLINES 2026 ELEMES EXPLORATION PLAN - DOUBLES DRILL RIGS TO FOUR IN Q1 2026
TSX-V: ARK / OTCQB: ARRKFVANCOUVER, BC, Jan. 22, 2026 /CNW/ - Arras Minerals Corp. (TSXV:ARK) (OTCQB:ARRKF) ("Arras" or "Arras Minerals" or "the Company") is pleased to outline the 2026 Elemes Exploration Plan focused on accelerating the advancement of the Elemes Project in the Pavlodar region of northeast Kazakhstan.Highlights of the program include:Phase 2 Elemes drill program expanded, additional 20,000+ metres ("m") of core drilling planned, withTwo drills to commence in February and an additional two drills to commence in MarchPrimary emphasis on expanding scale of Berezski Central and Berezski North targetsAdditional drilling extending the footprint of Berezski East Target and to find the source of the porphyry mineralization identified at the Novii target (announced December 16, 2025)6,000m of Top of Bedrock ("KGK") drilling planned at both Berezski and Aimandai Trends to accelerate target definition in these zones.Darren Klinck, President commented, "One year ago this month we announced the initial results from our Phase 1 drilling program at Elemes which started to outline the emergence of two distinct porphyry centres at Berezski North and Berezski Central. Pleasingly, after successfully raising capital and commencing the Phase 2 program in May, the follow-on eight months of work has delivered further expansion of the mineralized zones in both of these target areas and has identified additional targets at Berezski East and Novii which the Company has yet to determine if they are likely extensions of Berezski Central or new porphyry systems altogether. Overall, we believe that the outcomes from this first year of work warrants accelerating activity and we are doubling the drills that will be operating at Elemes to four rigs by March this year." He went on to say, "At a time when the world is waking up to the importance of critical minerals and commodities generally, our thesis that Kazakhstan would continue to be a stable jurisdiction to operate in and one that goes on attracting more and more foreign interest continues to play out. Marrying that with tremendous mineral endowment, and the Kazakhstan cost advantage, we continue to believe that the Elemes Project holds the near-term potential to demonstrate more than one scalable copper-gold deposit at grades that are consistent with operating copper-gold mines in Kazakhstan today, some of which are among the lowest cost operations globally. The timeline to explore for, develop, permit and operate a new mine in Kazakhstan going forward we believe will be amongst the shortest and with some of the lowest capex intensity of any critical minerals provinces globally. The vast infrastructure, deep acceptance from society paired with the ongoing support and encouragement from our government partners, creates the environment that will be a competitive advantage for Arras going forward."Berezski Trend - Overview2025 marked a year of major advancements at Elemes. The Company commenced Phase 2 drilling in May and completed nearly 10,000m of drilling by late December. The program significantly expanded the footprints of copper-gold mineralization at Berezski Central, Berezski East and Berezski North and discovered a potential new porphyry system at Novii. This work has expanded the length of the Berezski Trend to at least a 10 kilometre ("km") long strike length and demonstrates that mineralization continues below cover to the south. Grades and widths reported to-date at Elemes are consistent with mined grades from operating open-pit copper operations in Kazakhstan today.A 64-hole KGK drilling program was completed in Q4 2025 across the Berezski East and Berezski Central targets to evaluate whether this technique could accelerate exploration along the entire length of the Berezski Trend. The program was highly successful, confirming the northward and southward continuation of mineralization at both Berezski Central and Berezski East, while also identifying multiple new, previously unrecognized, gold zones in the immediate vicinity of Berezski East. Initial follow-up drilling of one of these newly identified zones returned encouraging gold mineralization in drill hole EL25022, which intersected 29.9m grading 0.63 g/t Au starting from a depth of 14.0m. These results validate the effectiveness of the KGK approach as a powerful discovery tool and demonstrate its potential to rapidly generate new targets, which represent priority areas for future exploration and expansion of the mineralized footprint.Magnetotellurics ("MT") and Gravity geophysical surveys were also completed at the Berezski and Aimandai Trends in Q4 2025. They have provided additional important data supporting the concept of the potential presence of several large porphyry systems along the Berezski Trend.In 2026, Arras plans to expand the diamond drill program for at least an additional 20,000m on key Berezski Targets and also conduct a systematic 6,000m+ KGK drilling program along the entire length of the Berezski Trend and priority areas of the Aimandai Trend identified from the various magnetic, gravity and MT geophysics surveys. This KGK program will rapidly define the mineralization footprints of existing targets and identify additional new targets for follow-up prioritization and drilling.Berezski NorthThe Company completed six drill holes at the Berezski North target in H2 2025, outlining a 600m long copper-gold mineralized system. Deeper drilling has intersected broad intervals of porphyry-style mineralization in drill-holes EL24005 (547.0m grading 0.48 g/t Au and 0.23% Cu) and EL25027 (results pending).Berezski North is defined by a several large chargeability highs (Figure 1), surrounding a large magnetic high (Figure 2). The chargeability anomaly is probably related to a pyrite halo that commonly surrounds the potassic core of many porphyry deposits.Several discrete magnetic lows are spatially related to the hydrothermal breccias that have been intersected in several drill-holes, including drill holes EL25014A (154.0m grading 0.72 g/t Au and 0.29% Cu) and EL25023 (246.2m grading 0.75 g/t Au and 0.24% Cu).The MT survey results (Figure 3) recently received from the program completed in Q4 2025 has defined a large conductivity anomaly centered below drill hole EL24006 (56.0m grading 0.35 g/t Au and 0.35% Cu), with high conductivity zones extending to surface that coincide with porphyry mineralization intersected in holes EL24005 and EL25027 and with the breccias intersected in hole EL25014A and EL25023, indicating that the areas of mineralization intersected to date may connect to a much larger mineral system a depth.The 2026 drilling will test the conductivity zones to the southwest of drill-holes EL24005 and EL25014A, towards the center of Berezski North Target and test the deep conductivity zones. KGK drilling will be conducted systematically over the entire Berezski North Target to cost-effectively test the various near surface conductivity, chargeability and magnetic lows to determine their origin.Berezski Central /Berezski EastResults from 2025 identified wide zones of porphyry Cu-Au mineralization with hole EL25012 (444.0m grading 0.25 g/t Au and 0.16% Cu) extending the mineralization to at least 500m depth. Hole EL25018 (76.0m 0.28 g/t Au and 0.17% Cu expanded the footprint to 600m strike length. Regional drilling has defined a large, low-grade (>0.1 g/t Au) gold shell extending for at least 2.1 km (see Figure 4) from drill-hole EL24003 (264.0m grading 0.17 g/t Au) to drill-hole EL25013 (192.0m grading 0.16 g/t Au).The ground magnetic data shows that the current Cu-Au mineralized envelope is in the center of a very large, demagnetized zone caused by the alteration associated with a large porphyry system.At Berezski East, the mineralization coincides with a 2 km long linear magnetic high. The IP and MT data shows subtle chargeability and conductivity anomalies, probably reflecting the lower sulphide content seen in the drilling from this area.The MT survey has defined a large 2.5 km by 1.2 km conductivity high at Berezski Central (Figure 5) that extends south towards drill-hole NOV25003. It is believed that this anomaly is caused either by sulphides or clay minerals associated with porphyry systems. The weaker anomalies seen at Berezski East reflect the lower sulphide content seen in drill-holes at this target.At Berezski Central, drilling will focus on expanding the footprint of the known mineralization with holes exploring the continuation of the near surface conductivity anomaly to the south towards the Novii Target; additionally several holes are planned to test the large near-surface conductivity anomaly; and several holes are planned to explore the large deeper conductivity anomaly located to the west of the current mineralization to determine its cause.At Berezski East, drilling will explore the prominent magnetic high that hosts the Au-Cu mineralization seen in holes EL24004 (138.8m grading 0.77 g/t Au and 0.09% Cu) and EL25019 (457.5m grading 0.61 g/t Au and 0.10% Cu) to the north and south. Several holes will explore a prominent gravity low to the northeast of hole EL25019 to determine its cause, and to see if it is the source of the porphyry-style (potassic) alteration and mineralization intersected in that hole (released October 8, 2025). Follow-up drilling on gold intercepts from the KGK drilling (released December 16, 2025) that identified multiple gold zones to the east of holes EL25019 and EL24004 is also planned.The MT survey defined a series of large, near surface conductivity anomalies at Berezski Central and Berezski East. These appear to link at depth to a larger anomaly at depth to the west of Berezski Central (Figure 6), which is also planned to be tested as part of the 2026 drill program.NoviiThe discovery of porphyry style mineralization at Novii in hole NOV25003 (announced ...Full story available on Benzinga.com
