With the fourth diamond hole extending the sediment-hosted copper horizon out by another 2km, American West looks to have a regional-scale project in its hands. Pic: via Getty Images.
Mining
American West’s diamond drilling program at the Storm copper project in Canada has maintained the 100% success rate with a fourth hole intersecting a 18.5m zone of sediment-hosted visual copper sulphides.
AW1 continues to be a copper-toned success story, up a whopping ~500% since announcing two big hits at its Canadian Storm copper project on June 6. “Storm’s Tier 1 potential could make AW1 bigger than Elvis,” former geologist and experienced stockbroker Guy Le Page said earlier this month. It continues to grow, with new hole ST23-04 intersected the important copper minerals chalcocite and chalcopyrite from a down-hole depth of 339m.
This correlates with the prospective sediment hosted copper horizon intersected in all diamond holes drilled this season. It also extends the apparent strike of the prospective copper horizon at the Storm project by a further 2km to the west of hole ST23-03.
The success of ST23-04, which targeted a large gravity anomaly located south of the Southern Graben Fault and the fault itself, validates the effectiveness of gravity in identifying copper sulphide mineralisation at the project, American West Metals (ASX:AW1) says.
Managing director Dave O’Neill said the outstanding 100% success rate for drilling across a very broad area is further evidence of a “truly regional scale copper system”.
“The drill hole hit both targets and has confirmed the presence of significant volumes of sediment-hosted copper sulphides south of the graben fault, whilst also confirming the main fault system as a productive plumbing system for copper mineralisation and a target for additional copper mineralisation,” he added.
“The sediment-hosted copper intersection within ST23-04 sits within the same stratigraphic package intersected in previous diamond drill holes completed by American West, and is over 2km from the closest deep drill hole.
“With every drill hole that has targeted the large gravity features hitting copper sulphides, our confidence in the large-scale potential of the copper system continues to grow.”
Located on Somerset Island in Nunavut, AW1 has enjoyed considerable success at Storm.
Resource drilling focused on high-grade, near-surface copper mineralisation has identified multiple zones across 15km2 with intercepts topping out at an eyepopping 110m grading 2.45% copper from surface.
The ongoing drilling at the 4100N, 2750N and 2200N zones, which feature shallow ores that offer large scale, open pit mining potential, will support a maiden resource estimate for the project. Additionally, beneficiation of shallow Storm mineralisation using just an ore sorter has produced a +53% copper product that highlights the potential for American West to benefit from early cashflows through a direct shipping ore operation.
Diamond drilling testing for large-scale, sediment-hosted copper below the shallow mineralisation has also been remarkably successful with every one of the wide-spaced holes drilled to date returning thick intercepts of mineralisation. This is reinforced by the intersection of chalcocite – a high-value copper ore mineral that is typically found in large, sediment-hosted copper deposits such as those found in the Kalahari Copper Belt and Central African Copper Belt.
With copper being essential for electrification, the growing likelihood that Storm is a major copper system will be welcomed by the market, which is staring down a future market deficit of up to 6Mt by the end of this decade.
This is due to waning output from major producer Chile, new mines proving costly to bring online and a dearth of new discoveries.
That Storm is located close to the US, which recently added the red metal to its list of critical minerals, just serves to sweeten the pot for American West.
With the continued success of its diamond drilling, it is no surprise that American West is continuing the program to test key geophysical and geological copper targets in the Storm area.
Additionally, it has completed planned drilling of the 4100N, 2750N and 2200N Zones completed and has moved the rig operating in those areas to test a number of high-priority “Thunder” style exploration and geophysical targets to continue to define additional areas of copper mineralisation and demonstrate potential resource upside.
The company is also continuing ore sorting, beneficiation and process optimisation on a range of ore types and a environmental baseline survey is currently underway.
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.
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