East Star Resources said drilling at the Verkhuba Deposit on the Rudny Altai VMS belt in Kazakhstan had confirmed high-grade copper intercepts.
More than sixty samples were above the 1% copper and zinc detection limits, it said, with the best intersection more than 10m wide.
These samples will be re-assayed for gold, said East Star, with silver also detected with potential for another possible by-product credit.
Alex Walker, East Star chief executive, said: "We are absolutely delighted with these initial results which not only demonstrate the Verkhuba Deposit contains relatively shallow high-grade copper but also provide credibility to the >42,000m of historical drill results used in our resource model.
"Although more work is required, the prospect of East Star being able to deliver a JORC-compliant open pit copper resource right next to infrastructure and within trucking distance of third-party mills with excess capacity just got a whole lot closer.”