Work is continuing to progress the potential near-surface mine development pathway for the Storm Project, in parallel with the accelerated exploration and delineation program.
Beneficiation and metallurgical test work on drill core from the 2022 field season (ST22-02) will create a definitive processing flow sheet for a direct shipping product (DSP) from the representative near-surface Storm mineralization. Previous test work on these mineralization styles has produced a >53% copper direct shipping product using a full-scale ore sorter and with no further processing or optimisation (see April 11, 2022 news release).
The potential to produce a high value and high margin DSP at Storm could present an opportunity to provide a short lead time potential pathway to generating revenue from the project while continuing to explore for further discovery. Ausenco has been engaged and has commenced work on defining and initiating the permitting pathway for this style of operation at Storm.
This work will also include the commencement of environmental baseline studies during Q2 2023 within the Storm Prospect area and a newly defined transport corridor between the Storm Prospect area and the coast.
Figure 7: Prospect location map of the Nunavut Project highlighting the main prospective copper and zinc stratigraphic horizons.
About the Storm Copper and Seal Zinc-Silver Projects, Nunavut
The Nunavut property consists of 117 contiguous mining claims and six prospecting permits covering an area of approximately 302,725 hectares on Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada. The Storm Project comprises both the Storm Copper Project, a high-grade sediment hosted copper discovery (intersections including 110m* @ 2.45% Cu from surface and 56.3m* @ 3.07% Cu from 12.2m) as well as the Seal Zinc Deposit (intersections including 14.4m* @ 10.58% Zn, 28.7g/t Ag from 51.8m and 22.3m* @ 23% Zn, 5.1g/t Ag from 101.5m). Additionally, there are numerous underexplored targets within the 120-kilometre strike length of the mineralized trend, including the Tornado copper prospect where 10 grab samples yielded >1% Cu up to 32% Cu in gossans.
*Stated drill hole intersections are all core length, and true width is expected to be 60% to 95% of core length.
Figure 8: Storm Copper Project, Location Map.
Qualified Person
Michael Dufresne, M.Sc., P.Geol., P.Geo., is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this press release.