American West starts whirlwind of copper drilling activity at Storm

American West has kicked off a high-impact maiden diamond drilling to test multiple high-grade copper targets at its Storm project in Nunavut, Canada.

The program, its first since acquiring the project, will seek to extend and infill the 2750N zone, where historical drilling had returned rip-roaring results such as 110m at 2.45% copper from surface and 56.3m at 3.07% copper from 12.2m.

American West Metals (ASX:AW1) expects this part of the drilling to advance Storm towards an initial resource estimate.

Drilling will also test a number of new, high-priority electromagnetic conductors which it has identified in 2021 that have potential to deliver further massive sulphide copper discoveries.

Managing director Dave O’Neill is understandably excited about the drill program given the potential of the 2750N zone to support a low-footprint direct shipping ore mining proposal as indicated by initial ore sorting test work which has produced a >53% copper product.

Further beneficiation test work will be completed with samples to be collected in this program.

“We are also excited to drill test a number of newly identified EM conductors. We are seeing extensive chalcocite outcrops at surface, with coincident geophysical anomalies that are consistent with copper sulphides. These are compelling targets for a new discovery,” O’Neill added.

“The start-up of the program has gone smoothly with favourable weather conditions. We look forward to reporting on the results as drilling progresses.”

Quick resource definition

With the existing width of copper intervals and plus-100m distance between the two historical holes, extension and infill drilling at 2750N is expected to quickly define large volumes of copper mineralisation.

American West will drill between 15 and 20 holes, which may includethe 4100N and 2200N Zones where other thick occurrences of high-grade copper are located.

These holes will be drilled to depths of 100m to 160m due to the shallow nature of mineralisation.

Expanding the Storm

The company adds that a series ofnew EM conductors, some of which are coincident with outcropping copper occurrences, are consistent with the EM responses of known massive chalcocite mineralisation on the Storm property.

A number of these compelling exploration targets will also be drill tested during this program.

This article was developed in collaboration with American West Metals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.