Schaft Creek drilling returns high-grade gold for Copper Fox (September 07, 2006)

Vancouver – Partial assays from Copper Fox Metals‘ (CUU-V, CPFXF-O) initial 2006 drilling at its Schaft Creek project in northwestern British Columbia indicate a new high-grade gold zone.

With a drill program testing historical grades at the porphyry copper project and extracting material for metallurgical work, hole 06CF255 intersected a 284.5-metre interval of stockwork-hosted mineralization (from 18.5 metres depth) averaging 1.48 grams gold per tonne including a 15.1-metre section of 19.6 grams gold in the Main Liard zone.

Eight holes have been completed so far this year by Copper Fox on the Breccia, Western Main Laird, Main Laird and Eastern Main Laird zones at Schaft Creek.

Mineralization was first discovered on the project in 1957 with a substantial amount of work conducted on the property since. Following a brief evaluation undertaken by Asarco in the mid-1960s, Hecla (HL-N) entered into an option agreement in 1968 and conducted extensive drilling plus engineering studies geared towards development of a large open pit copper-gold-molybdenum mine.

Hecla ceased work in 1977 and sold its interest to Teck Cominco (TEK.B-T) the subsequent year. Teck continued an aggressive drill campaign looking to confirm and expand Hecla’s work and evaluate the feasibility of mine development. Further data reviews were conducted by Teck and Western Copper Holdings, a predecessor of Western Silver that was recently acquired by Glamis Gold (GLG-T, GLG-N), intermittently through the 1980-to-1990s.

In 2002, Copper Fox acquired its option from Teck Cominco for a 93.4% interest (70% direct and 23.4% indirect) in Schaft Creek for expenditures of $5 million by the end of 2006 and aggregate expenditures of $15 million by the end of 2011. Teck Cominco retains a back-in option to reacquire up to 75% interest.

A scoping study completed in late-2004 reviewed an indicated resource of 670.6 million tonnes grading 0.316% copper, 0.035% MoS₂, 0.22 gram gold and 1.9 grams silver per tonne (giving a copper equivalent grade of 0.4%) using a 0.35% copper equivalent cut-off grade. A further 274 million tonnes of inferred resource was also estimated averaging 0.31% copper, 0.039% MoS₂, 0.18 gram gold and 1.6 grams silver or a 0.38% copper equivalent.