Copper Fox Packs on Pounds, Worth Less

Copper Fox Metals (CUU-V, CPFXF-O) increased its copper and gold resources recently at its Schaft Creek project, in B.C., but watched as its share price fell on news that the molybdenum and silver resource had dropped.

In Toronto on the news, the Calgary-based company’s shares fell more than 12% or 18 to $1.36 on just over 1 million shares traded.

The company announced an increase of 8% in the copper resource and 30% in gold, but a decrease of 7% in both molybdenum and silver.

With a 0.2% copper-equivalent cutoff, the measured and indicated resource estimate now stands at roughly 1 billion tonnes averaging 0.31% copper, 0.23 gram gold, 0.02% molybdenum and 1.63 grams silver for an average of 0.34% copper equivalent.

That gives the company roughly 6.6 billion lbs. copper, 455 million lbs. molybdenum, 7.8 million oz. gold and 55.3 million oz. silver.

The copper-equivalent calculations used prices of US$1.50 per lb. for copper, US$550 per oz. for gold, US$10-per-lb. molybdenum and US$10-per-oz. silver.

Copper Fox is planning to start its summer drill program in late May, and will drill another 15,000 metres, as well as conduct geotechnical work for mine site planning.

The company wants to develop an open-pit mine with a minimum capacity of 65,000 tonnes per day over at least 15 years.

Copper Fox can earn a 70% interest in the property by spending $15 million by 2011; as per its agreement with Teck Cominco (TCK.B-T, TCK-N), it had already spent $5 million by the end of last year. It can acquire a further 23.4% from Teck by delivering a bankable feasibility study on the project. That would take Copper Fox to a 93.4% interest in the property. Teck has a back-in option, but is entitled to a 1% net smelter return or Copper Fox shares worth $1 million if it doesn’t exercise the option.

A total of 12,000 metres were drilled in 2005 and 2006 to confirm the historical database and development of a new geological model for the mineral deposit.

In a release, Copper Fox president and chief executive Guillermo Salazar, said that the geological model shows the mineral deposit to be open to the north, east, and at depth.

Inferred resources were also updated, and with a 0% cutoff, now total 1.2 billion tonnes averaging 0.08% copper, 0.006% molybdenum, 0.07 gram gold and 1.48 grams silver.