EuroPacific Metals (TSX-V:EUP) announced that it has completed two initial drill holes as part of its 2024 exploration program at the Miguel Vacas copper target on the Borba 2 copper property located in Portugal.
The company said the first drill hole was collared near the southern limit of the old open pit and drilled to a depth of 112.8 meters.
It intercepted a broad broke mineralized interval with copper secondary minerals associated with a 28-meter-wide polyphase breccia/shear zone from 57 meters, including an expected high-grade zone from 2 meters to 64 meters.
Mineralization consisted of malachite, libethenite, crisocola, atacamite, covelite and tenorite. Primary sulphides were “virtually absent” up to a depth of 80 meters, EuroPacific Metals (TSX-V:EUP) said.
The second drill hole was located about 30 meters from the northern limit of the pit and was completed to 150.1 meters.
It intersected an 18-meter-wide mineralized zone from 119.25 meters which the company said confirmed the presence of a North West-South East fault displacing the mineralized zone to the West and opens new potential for an additional extension of the shear corridor to the North.
EuroPacific Metals (TSX-V:EUP) CEO Karim Rayani highlighted that the initial drill intercepts showed continuity at Miguel Vacas.
“As we increase the drill hole density at the supergene zone this will further aid in the preparation of an initial resource estimate,” Rayani said.
“I am also very excited that we are approaching an important milestone of first physical development work on the Borba 2 Property."
EuroPacific Metals said a third drill hole is underway and an initial batch of 60 core samples has already been cut in half and dispatched for multi-element analysis.
Its 2024 program will consist of a minimum of 1,500 meters of ore drilling to further define a shallow open pit resource of oxide copper mineralization recoverable by hydrometallurgical methods. This will be followed up by step-out drilling on the deeper, meaning greater than 80 meters, sulphide ore.