Nevada Copper can’t help but find more red metal

Nevada Copper (NCU-T) keeps hitting more copper, just as it puts its finishing touches on a soon-to-be-released feasibility study on its Pumpkin Hollow property in Nevada’s Yerington district.

The most recent results came out of the last three holes drilled at the project, and they continue to impress.

The holes targeted the North, South and Southeast deposits within an area known as the Western deposit.

The most impressive intercept came from the North deposit, where a single hole returned 25.7 metres true thickness grading 1.67% copper, 0.29 gram gold and 5.7 grams silver. Nevada Copper says the hole expands mineralization along the northwest edge, as it came outside of the current ultimate pit limit. Mineralization remains open to the north and downdip.

In the northern part of the South deposit, a hole targeted deeper mineralization and intersected several zones, with the largest zone being 125.3 metres true thickness grading 0.27% copper.

The remaining hole, which was drilled in the Southeast deposit, was carried out to help better define mineralization. The highlight intercept there returned 11.5 metres grading 0.61% copper, 0.171 grams gold, 3 grams silver and 39.4% iron.

The program was made up of 94 drill holes totalling 47,000 metres, of which 44,000 metres made it into the updated resource estimate that came out in early September.

The estimate increased resources in the Western deposits by over 1.1 billion lb., bringing measured and indicated resources up to 5.4 billion lb.

The Western deposits have measured and indicated resources of 732 million tonnes grading 0.4% copper equivalent. The deposits also have measured and indicated iron resources of 400 million tonnes grading 32.2% iron.

The Eastern deposits, which were not updated in September, have measured and indicated resources of 50.5 million tonnes grading 1.67% copper equivalent.

The project is made up of both underground deposits and open-pit deposits, and has proven and probable reserves of 405 million tonnes grading 0.58% copper equivalent.

The company is planning to build a mine that can process 5,900 tonnes of ore per day, with an initial mine life of 12 years. It expects to have a feasibility study out on the project by late November.

On Oct. 30 — the day the news was released — the company’s shares were up 3¢ to $3.63 on 45,000 shares traded. Its stock price has fluctuated between $1.81 and $5.50 over the last 52 weeks.