Vancouver – Ten-month old Nevada Copper (NCU-V) is pushing hard to explore its Pumpkin Hollow project in southwestern Nevada, with 13,000 metres drilled to date. The companys efforts are being rewarded: two step-out holes intersected broad intervals of high-grade copper within larger zones of lower-grade mineralization, adding to a pile of data that will likely increase the propertys resource tally.
Hole NC07-02, collared along the eastern edge of the underground East deposit, intersected several zones of copper-gold mineralization including 30.5 metres averaging 2.16% copper, 0.11 gram gold per tonne and 2.6 grams silver, starting at a depth of 603 metres. A previous hole collared 30 metres to the west encountered 28.9 metres of 3.98% copper in the same horizon.
At Pumpkin Hollows North deposit, which lies at potentially open-pittable depths, hole NC07-06 infilled between widely spaced historic drilling and hole NC07-06 stepped out to the northeast. Both drill holes intersected continuous low-grade copper with bands of higher-grade mineralization. NC07-06 cut 22 metres grading 0.80% copper and 0.8 grams silver, including 1.0 metre of 5.32% copper and 3.3 grams silver. The step-out hole intersected 6.7 metres grading 0.9% copper and 1.5 grams silver, including 1.5 metres of 1.92% copper and 3.1 grams silver.
Nevada Copper president and CEO Giulio Bonifacio is very, very pleased with the results so far. Its beyond our expectations, he said. We had initially designed a 12,000 metre drill program but based on what weve seen so far weve already expanded it to 18,000 metres.
Last June Nevada Copper announced a NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate that showed measured and indicated resources of 312 million tons grading 0.44% copper and 12.31% iron, as well as inferred resources of 454 million tons grading 0.37% copper and 8.15% iron.
Bonifacio says his company is pushing for an updated estimate by September, and he expects the grade to increase considerably. With the historical drilling there wasnt sufficient drill density in eastern zone, and that pushed down the grade estimate, he said. But when you look at our recent cross-section drill results, its clear the grade will go up.
The previous owners of Pumpkin Hollow made Nevada Coppers rapid progress possible. Nevada Copper acquired the property in December 2005. Before then it was owned and explored by United States Steel (X-N) and Anaconda Copper Mining Company, now a subsidiary of British Petroleum (BP-L), who together drilled almost 183,000 metres. Those are two of the biggest mining companies around, which is good for us because that core library was very well maintained the historical data are just meticulous, Bonifacio said.
Previous explorers, however, only assayed for copper and iron. Most of the cores have never been tested for gold, silver, or moly, Bonifacio said. So we are re-assaying 150 of 424 holes, which is over 4000 samples to feed into our updated resource estimate along with our own drill results.
And while Pumpkin Hollow is still in early stages of development, Bonifacio is not concerned about the regulatory hurdles ahead. In Nevada were in a pro mining area, so its not really a concern, he said.
The Pumpkin Hollow site is in Lyon County, Nevada, about an hour and a half drive southeast of Reno, and is situated in the Walker Lane trend. The nearby Yerington Copper Operation was mined from 1953 to 1978, producing 2 billion lbs. of copper.
Pumpkin Hollow is a high-grade copper-magnetite skarn associated with a cluster of copper porphyry deposits. Discovered by US Steel in 1960 using airborne magnetics, extensive drilling in the 1990s delineated large copper and magnetite resources.
A private group of investors started negotiating the acquisition in July 2005, and closed the deal that December. By August 2006, Nevada Copper (previously Astron Resources) was born.
The first drill results from Pumpkin Hollow came in January of this year, and after a series of encouraging results Nevada Copper closed a US$5 million non-brokered private placement comprised of 2,127,658 shares at US$2.35 apiece.