NorthWest Copper (TSX-V:NWST) Corp chief executive Peter Bell recently told Proactive that drilling at the company's Kwanika project in British Columbia is advancing apace and that the results were giving credence to the company's belief that the deposit has high-grade potential.
Kwanika comprises two bulk tonnage calc-alkaline porphyry deposits and is home to both near-surface open-pittable resources and a higher-grade underground resource. The company's big aim is to better define the higher-grade zones with a view to coming up with a fresh approach to how to potentially develop (mine) the asset.
So far, the drill results released by the company have hailed from just shallow drilling at Kwanika. These will all be incorporated into an updated Kwanika resource estimate earmarked to be published before the end of the year.
"What we're trying to do here at Kwanika is enhance the higher grade part of the deposit," explained Bell to Proactive's Steve Darling in October this year.
Utilize what's there
"We want to understand it better and we want to make sure that we fully utilize what's there and we're also looking to expand it and improve the grade. So our understanding of the geology there has evolved. Our drill program is orientated to make the most of that understanding and the results continue to come in and support our thesis that it's actually higher grade and there's more of it than we thought before," Bell added.
Drill highlights results from the project released at the end of September hailed from the north part of Kwanika and followed on from those reported earlier in the month which came from the first 2,000 metres (m) of a planned 8,500m program at Kwanika, which also showed consistently high-grade intercepts.
Assays included an intersection of 202.2m in one hole starting from 71.7m depth showing 0.74% copper-equivalent, which included a length of 45.8m, starting from the same depth, of 1.57% copper-equivalent. Another hole showed 38.5m at 0.85% copper-equivalent starting from 38.5m depth.
NorthWest Copper (TSX-V:NWST) is advancing the Stardust and Kwanika deposits, which sit just 7 kilometres (km) apart and have now been consolidated into a single advanced-stage project.
Lorraine and Top Cat
The company is also advancing the contiguous Lorraine and Top Cat properties (40 km north of Kwanika), a proven porphyry system, which is now being explored systematically for the first time.
The company also holds the East Niv project, which is a highly prospective copper-gold exploration target spanning over 43,000 hectares (Ha) where a 10-hole diamond drill program on a potential new discovery has now been completed. Results are pending.
Bell said that investors can expect plenty more newsflow to come from the company in the near-term, from Kwanika and elsewhere.
"We also have holes from the deeper part of the deposit, so those follow the same program, they are really looking to enhance and increase the size of the high grade...we have step-outs from around Kwanika so we still have quite a bit of results from Kwanika itself," he noted.
The company boss added that a three-hole program was completed at Stardust, with results pending.
"We've been pretty busy this year. We've had multiple drill programs going all at the same time and lots of results to come," he told Proactive.
NorthWest Copper, which has a market cap of around C$65 million, was formed following the merger of Serengeti Resources and Sun Metals only in March this year, combining their two project portfolios to create a regional pipeline of assets from grassroots to development stage.
Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com