VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 25, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HM Exploration Corp. (“HM Exploration”, “HM” or the “Company”) (CSE:HM) (FSE:X5H) is pleased to announce that it has expanded its land position through the staking of additional mineral tenure (the “new tenure”) at the Company’s Lewis Pilley’s Project (the “Lewis Project” and together with the new tenure, the “Property”), located in Newfoundland, Canada. The new tenure consists of 67 mineral claims encompassing an additional 17 km². The new tenure connects the northern and southern claim blocks, resulting in HM controlling the entirety of Pilley’s Island.
“This marks the first time in recent history that the entirety of Pilley’s Island has been consolidated under a single company,” commented Nick Rodway, CEO of HM Exploration Corp. “With district-scale control now in place, we are focused on unlocking additional VMS-style targets across the Property while continuing to aggressively drill the Clifford Jones Zone, where several compelling targets have remained untested for years. We look forward to providing further updates as drilling progresses.”
Highlights:
- Significant northern expansion of the Lewis Project (Please see Figure 1).
- New tenure increases total land position at the Lewis Project to ~60.25 km².
- The entirety of Pilley’s Island is now controlled by a single entity for the first time in recent history.
- Little systematic exploration has been conducted in the new tenure outside of the smaller-scale work completed by Brinco in the 1980s.
- Diamond drilling continues at Clifford Jones Zone for a minimum of 2,500 metres.
Figure 1: HM Exploration’s tenure on Pilley’s Island with an additional 67 mineral claims staked bringing the total land position to ~60.25 km².
Geology & Mineralization
The Property is located within the Notre Dame Subzone of the Dunnage Tectonostratigraphic Zone. Of note, most of the Property is underlain by Ordovician submarine volcanic rocks of the Roberts Arm Group which is regionally identified as part of a mature arc sequence referred to as the Buchans-Roberts Arm Belt that also hosts the historic Buchans mine (after Dunning et. Al., 1987). Mineralization occurs as lower grade (Spencer’s Dock); medium grade (Old Mines); and high grade (3B-Zone/Clifford Jones) deposits that are of both sub-seafloor replacement and exhalative varieties. The deposits are often flanked by extensive chlorite, sericite, silica, K-feldspar and epidote alteration often observed in bimodal-felsic VMS systems. The Spencer's Dock area displays sericite/silica alteration that generally increases in intensity near mineralized zones, while the 3B/Old Mine areas display sericite/silica alteration that is abundant but less widespread and is more intense when proximal to mineralized zones (after Kerr, 1996).
VMS deposits are a globally significant source of copper, zinc, lead, silver, and gold. The Property’s geology shares key characteristics with known Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide (“VMS”) districts in Newfoundland, including the past producing Buchans, Ming and Rambler Mines, supporting the exploration potential of the Property.
Figure 2: Regional map of Newfoundland displaying the location of the Property and other significant mineral exploration and mining projects in Newfoundland – Canada.
About Lewis Pilley’s Project
The Property is road accessible and situated approximately twenty-five (25) km east of the town of Springdale, approximately fifty-five (55) km southeast of Firefly Metals’ Green Bay Project and approximately one hundred fifty (150) km from the Pine Cove Mill and Port by way of major roads (Please see Figure 2).
The Property has a long history of mining and exploration dating back to the late 1800s when the Pilley’s Island Pyrite Company Ltd. produced approximately 450,000 tonnes of massive pyritic ore from the Pilley’s Island Mine-Old Mines (after Kerr, 1996).
The Property hosts a cluster of VMS systems and prospects with demonstrated high-grade Zn-Pb-Cu-Ag+/-Au intersections. Mineralization is typical bimodal-felsic VMS, with both massive sulfide and sulfide-clast breccias (Thurlow, 1996). The geological setting is directly analogous to the Buchans camp (Thurlow, 1996), and the presence of sulfide-clast breccias is a strong vector toward proximal massive sulfide lenses.
Most of the historic showings that fall within the extents of the Property have not seen systematic exploration. Many of the historic drill holes were shallow and drilled in a vertical orientation limiting the geological knowledge of the extents of the underlying lithology and mineralization. Work is being planned to validate historic assay results as well as collect new data from the 3B-Zone, Clifford Jones (Bull Road) Extension, Bouzanne Shaft, Henderson, Mansfield and Pilley’s Cove Showings.
References
Dunning, G.R., Kean, B.F., Thurlow, J.G. and Swinden, H.S. 1987: Geochronology of the Buchans, Roberts Arm and Victoria Lake Groups and Mansfield Cove Complex, Newfoundland. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Volume 24, pages 1175-1184.
Kerr, A. (1996) New perspectives on the stratigraphy, volcanology, and structure of the island-arc volcanic rocks in the Ordovician Roberts Arm Group, Notre Dame Bay. In Current Research, Newfoundland Department of Natural Resources, Geological Survey, Report 96-1, pages 283-310.
Thurlow, J.G 1996: Geology of a newly discovered cluster of blind massive sulfide deposits, Pilley’s Island, central Newfoundland. In Current Research, Newfoundland Department of Natural Resources, Geological Survey, Report 96-1, pages 181- 189.
National Instrument 43-101 Disclosure
Nicholas Rodway, P.Geo, (Licence# 46541) (Permit to Practice# 100359) is CEO and Director of the Company, and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Rodway has supervised the preparation, verified and approved the technical content in this news release.
About HM Exploration Corp.
The Company is currently advancing its Lewis Pilley’s Project located in Newfoundland. The Project encompasses a land area of ~60.25 km² and hosts a cluster of volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) systems and the historic Pilley’s Island Mine (~450,000 tonnes of ore produced in the late 1800s). Historic drilling at the 3B-Zone returned significant intersections, including 16.77m of 1.84% Cu and 3.05m of 5.03% Zn with 1.02 g/t Au (Au Pell, 1989). The geological setting is directly analogous to the prolific Buchans camp, with multiple underexplored showings and strong potential for new discoveries.
In addition, the Company holds 100% interest in the Devil’s Den Project, an exploration-stage Project consisting of two contiguous mineral licences encompassing ~3,200 hectares located west of Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Exploration work completed in 2022 established four geochemical grids to identify possible buried mineralization, uncovering multiple high-grade occurrences including copper values up to 4.68% at surface (Devil’s Den NI 43-101, Nov 2022). Phase One exploration completed in 2025 included high-resolution UAV magnetic surveying and a lithogeochemical program, which identified new structural targets and zones of elevated copper, zinc, and nickel geochemistry. The project hosts multiple historical adits with high-grade surface occurrences that remain undrilled. HM believes a lack of adequate modern exploration has left significant discovery potential.
HM Exploration is committed to applying modern exploration techniques across its projects to unlock value in historically underexplored Canadian mining districts.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors
HM EXPLORATION CORP.
“Nicholas Rodway”
President & CEO
Tel: 604.681.1568
info@hmexploration.com
Forward Looking Statements
This news release includes certain “Forward-Looking Statements” within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and “forward-looking information” under applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words “anticipate”, “believe”, “estimate”, “expect”, “target”, “plan”, “forecast”, “may”, “would”, “could”, “schedule” and similar words or expressions, identify forward-looking statements or information.
Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information relating to any future mineral production, liquidity, enhanced value and capital markets profile of HM, future growth potential for HM and its business, and future exploration plans are based on management’s reasonable assumptions, estimates, expectations, analyses and opinions, which are based on management’s experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, and other factors that management believes are relevant and reasonable in the circumstances, but which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the price of copper, gold and other metals; costs of exploration and development; the estimated costs of development of exploration projects; HM’s ability to operate in a safe and effective manner and its ability to obtain financing on reasonable terms.
This news release contains “forward-looking information” within the meaning of the Canadian securities laws. Statements, other than statements of historical fact, may constitute forward looking information and include, without limitation, statements with respect to the Property and its mineralization potential; the Company’s objectives, goals, or future plans with respect to the Property; potential benefits of acquiring the new tenure; further exploration work on the Property or other projects in the future. With respect to the forward-looking information contained in this news release, the Company has made numerous assumptions regarding, among other things, the geological, metallurgical, engineering, financial and economic advice that the Company has received is reliable and are based upon practices and methodologies which are consistent with industry standards. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable, these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies. Additionally, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein. Known risk factors include, among others: fluctuations in commodity prices and currency exchange rates; uncertainties relating to interpretation of well results and the geology, continuity and grade of copper, gold and other metal deposits; uncertainty of estimates of capital and operating costs, recovery rates, production estimates and estimated economic return; the need for cooperation of government agencies in the exploration and development of properties and the issuance of required permits; the need to obtain additional financing to develop properties and uncertainty as to the availability and terms of future financing; the possibility of delay in exploration or development programs or in construction projects and uncertainty of meeting anticipated program milestones; uncertainty as to timely availability of permits and other governmental approvals; increased costs and restrictions on operations due to compliance with environmental and other requirements; increased costs affecting the metals industry and increased competition in the metals industry for properties, qualified personnel, and management. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law.
The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
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