Huckleberry drilling hits new copper zone

Vancouver – Exploration drilling at Imperial Metals’ (III-T) 50% owned Huckleberry mine, located 123 km southwest of Houston, British Columbia, has returned significant copper intercepts.

This latest round of drilling has identified a new copper-molybdenum zone, just north of the main pit at the mine site, called the Northwest Target. Drill results include:

• Hole 04-306 The core hole intersected 210.5 metres (from 90 metres depth) grading 0.5% copper and 0.04% molybdenum;
• Hole 04-308 An intercept of 165 metres (from surface) averaged 0.35% copper and a 0.043% molybdenum;
• Hole 04-314 Starting from just 5 metres depth, an intersection of 265 metres assayed 0.54% copper and 0.006% molybdenum.

The Huckleberry open pit copper mine, having commenced production in 1997, has average annual output of about 34,000 tonnes of copper (75 million pounds) plus 200-500 tonnes of molybdenum (320,000-to-1.1 million pounds).

Reserves at the operation, 25-million tonnes grading 0.51% copper and 0.014% molybdenum, are sufficient for about 3.5 years of continued mine life.

The drill program is aimed at extending the life of the operation through the delineation of a new, open pittable ore body in the vicinity of the existing mine.

Imperial Metals’ 50% partners at Huckleberry are a consortium of Japanese companies consisting of Mitsubishi Materials (MIMTF-Q), Marubeni (MARUY-Q), Dowa Mining (DWMNF-Q) and Furukawa (FUWAF-Q).