The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Including 150 meters averaging 5.6 g/t gold and 2.5% copper North of 60 Mining News – March 13, 2020
An aerial view of the open-pit at Newcrest Mining and Imperial Metals' Red Chris copper-gold mine in northwestern B.C.
Newcrest Mining Ltd. March 11 announced that drilling at the Red Chris mine in northwestern British Columbia has encountered a pod of high-grade mineralization, including one hole that cut 276 meters averaging 1.7% and 3.3 grams per metric ton gold.
This intercept cut across a high-grade zone Imperial Metals Corp., Newcrest's joint venture partner at Red Chris, tapped in the mine's East Zone during 2009. This hole, RC09-350, cut 432.5 meters of 2% copper and 3.8 g/t gold.
"These grades are amongst the most impressive seen in recent history and we are very excited about the potential to bring these ounces into production as soon as possible," Newcrest Managing Director and CEO Sandeep Biswas said.
This includes evaluating the option of stoping any high-grade pods ahead of other bulk underground mining methods such as block caving in order to bring high-grade ore into production earlier.
The Australian miner is also looking into establishing an exploration decline late in the 2020 calendar year, access that could also be used for underground mining.
There are two drilling campaigns presently underway at Red Chris. The first is a resource definition program at East Zone, which is where the high-grade pod was discovered. Highlights from the latest batch of results from this program include:
• 188 meters averaging 0.52 g/t gold and 0.54% copper from a depth of 570 meters in hole RC600.
• 386 meters of 0.43 g/t gold and 0.46% copper from 458 meters in RC602.
• 276 meters of 3.3 g/t gold and 1.7% copper from 684 meters in RC611, which includes 150 meters of 5.6 g/t gold and 2.5% copper from 688 meters.
The second program is searching for additional zones of higher-grade mineralization within the Red Chris porphyry corridor. One hole from this program cut 204 meters of 0.45 g/t gold and 0.29% copper from 634 meters in hole RC608R.
A total of 9,235 meters of drilling has been completed since December, contributing to a total of 26,735 meters of drilling being completed since Newcrest acquired a 70% joint venture interest in Red Chris last August.
Red Chris produced 71.9 million pounds copper, 36,471 ounces of gold, and 133,879 oz of silver during 2019. This includes 21.7 million lb copper, 12,155 oz gold, and 45,508 oz silver during the fourth quarter, indicating higher metals production from the northwestern B.C. mine in 2020.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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