Celsius Resources Ltd (ASX:CLA, AIM:CLA) continues to receive good news from drilling at the MCB Copper-Gold Project in the Philippines in the form of further shallow and high-grade copper assay results.
The results at the project held by CLA's Philippine subsidiary Makilala Mining Company, Inc continue to point to new positions of shallow mineralisation in line with previous results from drill holes over the last two years, and historical drilling information compiled earlier by Freeport-McMoRan.
Broad intersections
Three additional drill holes have all confirmed further extensions to the shallow, high-grade copper mineralisation, including:
- 51.3 metres at 0.93% copper and 0.06 g/t gold from 7.7 metres;
- 101.5 metres at 0.90% copper and 0.18 g/t gold from 9 metres; and
- 131.1 metres at 0.93% copper and 0.23 g/t gold from 11 metres.
The positive results from the drilling campaign enhance confidence in the updated 2022 mineral resource estimate for the project.
“We continue to see higher-grade sections defined over a broad area now at shallow levels,” said executive director Peter Hume.
“The earlier success we had in 2022 defining new shallow higher grade copper mineralisation is continuing into 2023.
“We still have further tests to carry out on the possible extensions to these higher-grade copper zones which we believe will continue to improve the proposed production schedule, specifically during the early years, as part of our feasibility studies.
“MCB is a unique copper-gold mine opportunity in the Philippines, with a Memorandum of Agreement forged with the Balatoc community and now in the process of securing a mining agreement with the Philippine Government, paving the way to successfully developing the MCB Project and mutually benefitting our shareholders and local stakeholders alike.”
Horizontal blanket over the deposit
The three drill holes were planned to test the shallow extents of the defined higher-grade mineralisation, which appears to have developed as a relatively horizontal blanket over the MCB deposit area.
The area tested was previously poorly defined, due to a lack of drill hole collar locations available at earlier stages of exploration.
CLA was able to locate some new drill hole collar locations which enabled the testing of the shallow copper mineralisation towards the northeastern section of the MCB deposit.
Celsius hopes that further extensions of the shallow high-grade copper-gold mineralisation will form part of the shallow underground mining options.
The full impact of this additional drill hole information will be assessed during the optimisation of the MCB mine plan.
About the MCB Project
The MCB project, the Makilala portfolio’s flagship project, can be found in the Cordillera Administrative Region in the Philippines, some 320 kilometres north of Manila.
The most recent mineral resource estimate (MRE) for the project, announced in December last year, revealed that the project is comprised of 338 million tonnes at 0.47% copper and 0.12 g/t gold, for a total of 1.6 million tonnes of contained copper and 1.3 million ounces of gold, reported to a preferred lower cut-off grade of 0.2% copper.
A scoping study for the project conducted in 2021 pointed to the potential for the development of a copper-gold operation with a 25-year mine life, based on an underground mining operation and processing facility to produce a saleable copper-gold concentrate.
The scoping study included a post-tax NPV (8%) of US$464 million and internal rate of return (IRR) of 31%, assuming a copper price of US$4.00 per pound and a gold price of US$1,695 per ounce. Initial capital expenditure is estimated to be US$253 million with a payback period of around 2.7 years.