Vancouver – Reconnaissance drilling on its large Zambian Copperbelt footprint, First Quantum Minerals (FM-T) has discovered a new copper mineralized area at the Kashime prospect on the wholly-owned Mkushi Prospecting Licence in the Central Province of the country.
Reverse circulation (RC) drilling has turned up decent copper grades over significant widths. Hole KERC 3A intersected 101 metres (from 16 metres depth) that assayed 0.92% copper, with both oxide and sulphide mineralization.
The vertical RC drill program testing the propsect focused on a 1,000-metre section of a 2-km long copper-in-soil anomaly. The area is within the southern-most section of the Copperbelt, occurring in the Lusale Basin, an inlier of Late-Proterozoic Katangan sediments.
Copper mineralization occurs as partially oxidized, disseminated to semi-massive bornite and chalcopyrite hosted in altered schistose, carbonaceous sandstones. The unit dips shallowly southwards and is overlain by a barren dolomitic marble.
Two RC holes ended in mineralization: KERC 5 cut 55 metres (from 17 metres) grading 1.2% copper and KERC 6 intersected 56 metres (from 28 metres) averaging 2.08% copper.
Follow-up drilling will commence in early-2005.
First Quantum is a copper producer (with associated gold, cobalt and sulfuric acid) from operations in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2003, the company’s copper production was almost 30,000 tonnes.
The company reports 60.3 million shares outstanding. The issue trades in the $17.50 per share level, leveraged heavily to copper prices, giving a market capitalization of $1.05-billion.
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