Vancouver — Development drilling by
Core drilling underground is attempting to upgrade reserves and resources in the D zone. So far, about half the planned 76 holes (7,300 metres) have been completed.
Drilling of the Copperstone fault from an underground drill station continues to return high-grade gold values. Highlights include the following:
— Hole 26 — 3.3 metres grading 51.2 grams gold per tonne and 0.7% copper, including a high-grade intercept of 1.1 metres grading 102.1 grams gold and 0.6% copper.
— Hole 29 — 4.9 metres grading 13.1 grams gold, including 1 metre of 37 grams gold.
— Hole 31 — 5.8 metres of 8.3 grams gold and 0.9% copper, including a copper-enriched intersection of 0.8 metre grading 33.4 grams gold and 2.7% copper.
— Hole 32 — 4.6 metres grading 25.4 grams gold and 0.6% copper, including a high-grade section of 1.1 metres at 83.6 grams gold and 0.8% copper.
Drilling is also targeting the Highwall zone, where hole 8 returned 3 metres averaging 48 grams gold per tonne, including 1.5 metres of 91.5 grams gold.
Gold occurs in a sheared and altered fault zone within a volcano-sedimentary rock package.
Cyprus Minerals operated Copperstone as an open pit between 1987 and 1992, during which time it produced about 500,000 oz. gold at an average grade of 3.8 grams per tonne.
In a 1999 preliminary assessment, the C and D zones were estimated to have a total indicated resource of 809,000 tonnes grading 11 grams gold per tonne (285,700 contained oz.). The inferred resource stood at 1.1 million tonnes grading 12 grams per tonne (423,000 contained oz. ).
The recent results pushed the stock up over 10% to 21.5 on June 2, but the stock has since fallen back to 18 at presstime. The company has 176.3 million shares outstanding.
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