Gold Fields and Consolidated Woodjam estimate a billion lbs. copper at Woodjam

Vancouver — British Columbia has another member of the billion lb. copper club following an initial resource estimate on Gold Fields’ (GFI-N) and Consolidated Woodjam Copper’s (WCC-V) joint venture property.

The resource estimate is based on the Southeast zone of the Woodjam project, and is one of several targeted zones on the 573 sq. km property sitting near the town of Horsefly in central B.C.

Factoring in roughly 31,700 metres of drilling in 80 holes, the Southeast zone is estimated to contain 146.5 million inferred tonnes grading 0.33% copper for 1.06 billion lbs. copper with an effective cut-off of 0.16% copper. Gold Fields used fairly stringent parameters for the initial resource, incorporating a net-smelter-return cut-off grade of US$7.50 per tonne, an optimized pit shell that stops at 400 metres despite mineralization going as far as 700 metres deep, and no factoring in the potential gold, molybdenum, and silver content.

For the gold content Gold Fields states only that the resource contains a gold grade of 0.06 gram gold, a portion of which may be recovered as byproduct, and gives no grades for moly or silver.

Woodjam could look very different once Gold Fields completes resource estimates on the nearby Megabuck and Deerhorn zones that have also seen extensive drilling, though the company has not given any indication when that might be. Consolidated Woodjam noted that the Megabuck and Deerhorn zones show the potential for significantly increased gold content, as indicated by hole 4-32 on Megabuck that returned 274.9 metres grading 1.03 grams gold and 0.14% copper, and hole 11-30 at Deerhorn that hit 123 metres averaging 1.3 grams gold and 0.28% copper.

Gold Fields recently completed its 51% earn-in on both the Woodjam North and South properties, and told Consolidated Woodjam that it intends to earn a further 19% of both properties as per the option agreement. To earn up to 70% in the properties Gold Fields has to spend $12 million at Woodjam North and US$8 million and complete a feasibility study at Woodjam South. The gold major has already announced plans to spend a further $5.5 million exploring Woodjam in 2012, including 20,000 metres of drilling.

The Southeast resource sits below significant overburden, generally 200 metres thick with no outcrop. The zone is a calkalkaline copper-moly-gold porphyry located entirely within the Takomkane batholith.  Mineralization at the Southeast zone is hosted dominantly in fine chalcopyrite and pyrite stockwork, quartz-chalcopyrite and disseminated chalcopyrite in mafic mineral sites, and remains open in all directions.

Consolidated Woodjam only listed on the venture exchange in December and is the result of Fjordland Exploration (FEX-V) and Cariboo Rose Resources (CRB-V) consolidating their 60% and 40% interests in the Woodjam project into one company. Cariboo shareholders were issued a total of 20 million shares in Consolidated and Fjordland shareholders were issued 30 million.

Since starting to trade at 32¢ on December 5 the company’s shares have traded as low as 25¢, while on news of the resource Consolidated Woodjam’s share price hit a trading high of 40¢ before ending up 4¢ or 12.3% at 36.5¢.