Full Metal’s Little White Man gets bigger (July 14, 2008)

Vancouver – The first drill results from Full Metal Minerals‘ (FMM-V) 2008 program have expanded the size of a zinc-lead-copper-silver mineralized area at its Little White Man (LWM) prospect, one of several targets on its 40 Mile property in eastern Alaska, about 40 km from the community of Chicken.

“We think we may be on to a whole new CRD (carbonate-replacement) district,” says Robert MacLeod, Full Metal’s president.

Based on its 2007 drill program Full Metal had outlined a mineralized area 300 metres on strike and to a depth of 200-metres. But with the release of assay results from seven of 29 drill-holes completed so far this year, Full Metal Minerals has almost doubled the size of LWM to 550 metres on strike and to a depth of 300 metres. It is still open in all directions.

Full Metal’s best hole 29 fetched 68.2 metres, true-width, grading 6.56% zinc, 2.47% lead, 0.11% copper and 42.7 grams silver per tonne starting 47 metres below surface. Other holes encountered similar grades but over lesser widths. For instance hole 23 hit 4 metres starting at 188 metres grading 4.28% zinc, 9.84% lead, 0.12% copper and 134 grams silver.

The 2008 program adds to Full Metal’s equally impressive results from 2007. These include a near-surface, 127-metre intersection in hole 19 grading 10.8% zinc, 2% lead, 0.16% copper and 30.7 grams silver.

For the most part the mineralized area is made up of massive to semi-massive sphalerite-galena-chalcopyrite.

“It looks like a real, simple metallurgy,” MacLeod says. “It’s coarse grained, so it should have good recoveries.”

The LWM prospect is one of several Full Metal is pursuing on the 235,000-acre 40 Mile property that the company has a 100% option from Doyon, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation.These includes the Fish prospect 6 km east of LWM where exploration is ongoing and Full Metal encountered significant amounts of zinc, lead, copper and silver. For example hole 1, drilled in 2006, cut 11 near-surface metres grading 4.2% zinc, 0.2% lead, 0.11% copper and 205 grams silver.

The 100% option Full Metal entered into with Doyon includes both exploration and production agreements. During the exploration phase Full Metal must pay Doyon US$325,000 over six years, make annual US$10,000 scholarship donations and spend $US3.9 million on exploration.For any potential mining leases, Full Metal has agreed to precious and base metal royalties, as well as a number of annual payments. For precious metals there is a pre-payback 2% net smelter return royalty (NSR) and a post-payback 4% NSR. Alternatively, the parties may choose to go with a pre-payback 10% net profits interest (NPI) and a post-payback 20% NPI.

As for base metals, there will either be a 1% pre-payback NSR and a 3% post-payback NSR or a 10% pre-payback NPI and a 20% post-payback NPI.In addition to the NSRs and NPIs, Full Metal has agreed to advanced royalty payments of US$100,000 per year over five years that increase to US$250,000 for the year prior to production. Up until production Full Metal is also responsible for making annual US$25,000 scholarship donations that increase to US$50,000 once production begins.

Full Metal’s exploration and drill program is ongoing. At the moment MacLeod says the company is stepping out and infilling at LWM, and plans to continue its exploration programs at other 40 Mile targets, including Eva, Drumstick and Oscar, later on in the season.

With the infill program MacLeod says he hopes to be able to get a resource estimate complete by 2009.

“In terms of development,” MacLeod says, “We would truck concentrate to Delta Junctionabout a two and a half-hour truck ride to railhead (from 40 Mile).” The 40 Mile property is 40 km from the Taylor Highway and a dirt road gets to within about 5 km of the property. “The terrain isn’t too rugged,” he says, “so it wouldn’t be that hard to get concentrate out.”

He also says he’s excited about Full Metal’s other prospects in Alaska and the Yukon. They recently bought a 200-tonne gold mill for their Lucky Shot property 145 km north of Anchorage Alaska. The company is “going to drag it in” and hopes to start production next year to take advantage of high gold prices.

He says Full Metal has foregone the completion of a feasibility study for Lucky Shot and, instead completed an in-house study of the project. Capital costs are expected to come in around US$10-12 million.

“This type of operation would give us some cash flow to help fund our other exploration projects,” he says.

Full Metal is primarily focused on zinc-lead-copper-silver targets in Alaska.

On news of the drill results Full Metal’s share price didn’t budge and closed at $1.35.