Vancouver — The first three drill holes by Sheffield Resources (SLD-V, SLDOF-O) on the Engels mine area of its Moonlight copper property, in northern California’s Plumas Cty., have cut into a zone of high-grade copper mineralization.
The core holes all encountered high-grade copper starting from surface. Hole 1 returned 54 metres of 2.95% copper, including a 2-metre section averaging 10.9% copper, before it hit a void at 58 metres and was halted due to lost circulation. Sheffield notes two main intervals of mineralization in the intercept along with sections of broken rock thought to possibly be stope-fill from past workings.
Hole 2, drilled from the same collar as hole 1, averaged 2.54% copper over 44 metres including an 8-metre interval of 8.84% copper that also contained 2 metres of 19.15% copper. The hole was lost when it hit an old mine adit and lost circulation.
The third hole returned 28 metres of 2.99% copper with higher-grade intervals of up to 10.8% copper over 2 metres.
Sheffield president David Jenkins describes the drilling as “the first modern holes in the Engels mine area, and also above the historic workings.”
Engels is located just east of the company’s main Moonlight porphyry deposit, which hosts an indicated resource of 104 million tonnes grading 0.37% copper and 0.1 gram gold per tonne. Moonlight also hosts 44.3 million inferred tonnes of 0.33% copper and 0.1 gram gold.
The Engels mine and the nearby Superior mine operated between 1914 and 1930, reportedly producing about 161.5 million lbs. of copper from around 4.3 million tonnes of ore. The operations also produced about 23,000 oz. gold and 1.9 million oz. silver.
Moonlight was previously explored from 1966-1971 by a predecessor company of Placer Dome, now part of Barrick Gold (abx-t, abx-n), which spent about US$6 million on the project and completed over 30,000 metres of core drilling in 199 holes. The historic program resulted in a reserve estimate (not compliant with National Instrument 43-101) of about 162 million minable tonnes grading 0.39% copper (1.4 billion contained pounds copper).
Placer designed an open pit for the deposit, but it was never advanced into production. The major instead opted to proceed with development of its Gibraltar copper mine, in central British Columbia, with Moonlight remaining in its project inventory for about 30 years.
“Our goal (at Engels) is to find a starter pit to go with the oxide material Placer outlined at Moonlight,” Jenkins says.
The Engels mine project is situated on privately owned land that could potentially undergo a more rapid permitting process.
Following the company’s high-grade copper results, Sheffield shares closed up a dime to close at 35 apiece. Based on its 26 million shares outstanding, the company posts a $9-million market capitalization.
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