Minto Metals results encourage exploration

Minto Metals Corp. April 28 reported that the results from its ongoing 2022 exploration drilling at Minto are showing strong potential for expanding the resource and life of this copper mine in the Yukon.

The Minto mine has been in operation since 2007, with underground mining commencing in 2014. Over the past nearly 15 years, approximately 500 million pounds of copper have been produced from this operation.

The previous owners, Capstone Mining Corp., put Minto into care and maintenance in 2018 and in mid-2019, Minto Metals – formerly Minto Explorations Ltd. – purchased the Minto mine and restarted mining operations.

You can read a brief account of the history of Minto at Minto Metals' strongest quarter yet in the April 8, 2022 edition of North of 60 Mining News.

Based on a preliminary economic assessment prepared for Pembridge – parent company of Minto Metals – Minto is expected to produce 277 million pounds of copper, 129,000 ounces of gold, and 930,000 oz of silver over the eight years considered in the scoping level study.

The mine outlined in the PEA is based on 11.09 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 1.46% (356 million lb) copper, 0.53 grams per metric ton (189,000 oz) gold, and 4.75 g/t (1.86 million oz) silver; plus 13.03 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.29% (370 million lb) copper, 0.49 g/t (207,000 oz) gold, and 4.55 g/t (2.09 million oz) silver.

The mine is forecast to average 38 million lb of copper, 17,600 oz of gold, and 129,000 oz of silver annually over the next five years.

Minto received results from eight drill holes targeting extensions of the Minto East 2 and Cu Keel orebodies. Highlights from this drilling include:

• 1.34% copper over 25.97 meters, including 2.72% copper over 9.32 meters in hole 21EXP016 at Minto East 2 extension.

• 3.83% copper over 2.05 meters and 0.79% copper over 15.1 meters, including 2.71% copper over 2.58 meters in hole 21EXP019 at Minto North.

• 1.42% copper over 15.99 meters in hole 21DSME-005 at Minto East 2 inferred.

"We are encouraged by the positive results in this phase of our 2021-2022 drilling program," said Minto Metals Vice President of Exploration David Benson. "Part of the exploration mandate is to replace the mined resource base and these results from the step-out drilling at Minto East 2 and Cu Keel verify that the orebodies continue along strike and down-plunge. Additional step-out drilling following up on these strong results is planned for later in the year."

The company continues drilling on its 30,000-meter program in 2022, with the current phase of drilling focusing on the southern portions of the mining on numerous untested geophysical targets.

Quantec Geoscience has been retained to conduct borehole pulse time-domain electromagnetic surveys and a surface magnetotellurics survey starting in mid-summer. Satellite-based spectral imaging, utilizing the Worldview-3 Spectral Mapping satellite over the company's Yukon properties, is scheduled to commence in late May.

Furthermore, Minto Metals has also hired GoldSpot Discoveries to apply its artificial intelligence and geoscience expertise toward the compiling and re-processing of the company's geoscientific database.

"Minto Metals is entering a new and exciting phase of exploration," said Minto Metals President and CEO Chris Stewart. "As we previously discussed, there had been no exploration completed on the property since 2012, and we see great potential to expand our resource. These new drill results demonstrate that there is still a lot of potential to find new high grade lenses as well as extensions to known mining areas on this property near our existing infrastructure where over 500 million lbs of copper have been produced since mining started back in 2007."

So far, Minto has drilled 25 holes for 11,953 meters of the budgeted 30,000 meters of the current program. The remaining results will be released as they become available later in the year.

Stewart said the company plans to drill "into some completely new, high-potential targets in previously untested areas" during the second half of this year.