Copper Mountain Mining drills 1.01% CuEq over 104 metres at Copper Mountain mine, British Columbia

Copper Mountain Mining Corp. [CMMC-TSX; C6C-ASX] reported positive results from the first four drill holes of its 2023 exploration program at the Copper Mountain mine, located near Princeton, Southern British Columbia. Two of these holes were drilled at the Copper Mountain mine main pit and two at New Ingerbelle, which is located approximately 1 km west of the main pit.

Drill hole CM-DD-897 intersected the highest-grade and most gold-rich, copper-gold mineralization yet discovered at New Ingerbelle and extends the known mineralized zone by approximately 200 metres below the current mineral resource. This drill hole shows that the mineralized zone at New Ingerbelle has a vertical extent of at least 900 metres and the zone remains open both laterally and at depth.

Drilling highlights: Drill hole CM-DD-897 returned 191 metres of 0.66% CuEq (copper equivalent) (0.45% Cu, 0.32 g/t gold and 0.41 g/t silver) from 722 metres, including 104 metres of 1.01% CuEq (0.65% Cu, 0.52 g/t gold and 0.53 g/t silver) from 809 metres, including 45 metres of 1.50% CuEq (0.94% Cu, 0.83 g/t gold and 0.74 g/t silver) from 867 metres.

Drill hole CM-DD-896 returned 108 metres of 0.76% CuEq (0.59% Cu, 0.23 g/t gold and 2.13 g/t silver) from 464 metres, including 56 metres of 1.00% CuEq (0.79% Cu, 0.27 g/t gold and 3.59 g/t silver) from 466 metres.

Drill hole CM-DD-895 returned 42 metres of 0.74% CuEq (0.64% Cu, 0.13 g/t gold and 1.47 g/t silver) from 480 metres.

“Our current drill program has discovered high-grade copper-gold mineralization over 200 metres below the previous deepest drill hole at New Ingerbelle and shows that the mineralizing system becomes stronger and more gold rich at depth,” commented Patrick Redmond, Copper Mountain’s senior vice-president, exploration and geoscience. “We have been successful in achieving the objective of our 2023 exploration program, which is designed to look for higher-grade zones below and adjacent to the current resource. What we have found is similar to the high-grade zones at Red Chris and Cadia-Ridgeway. These latest drilling results continue to demonstrate the size potential of the Copper Mountain mine.”

The 2023 exploration program is designed to test seven target areas within the northwest-trending Copper Mountain-New Ingerbelle mineralized corridor, a four- to five-kilometre-long, northwest-trending zone of porphyry copper-gold mineralization. Multiple historical drill holes within this zone end in copper-gold mineralization and geophysical data strongly suggest that the mineralizing system extends well below the current known mineral resource, which is open both laterally and at depth.

The 2023 drill program consists of two phases. Phase 1 is expected to be completed midyear and includes a large geophysical program and approximately 8,000 metres of diamond drilling. Phase 2 consists of approximately 10,000 metres of additional drilling. At New Ingerbelle, drilling is currently continuing with three holes completed and one hole in progress. At the Copper Mountain mine, two holes have been completed and one hole is in progress, which is a 175-metre undercut of a 2010 drill hole that intersected a 72-metre zone grading 1.86 per cent CuEq from 452 metres at depth.

The current drill program is focused on finding higher-grade zones of mineralization below and adjacent to the current mineral resource, and similar to the higher-grade zones that have been discovered at other alkalic porphyry copper-gold deposits such as Red Chris in British Columbia and Cadia-Ridgeway in New South Wales, Australia.

A large geophysical program is also continuing and is designed to infill and extend previous induced polarization (IP)/DC resistivity coverage. A 3-D survey has been completed at New Ingerbelle and both 3-D and 2-D surveys have been completed at the Copper Mountain mine. A magnetotellurics (MT) survey is currently continuing at New Ingerbelle and will extend the depth of investigation below the limits of the IP/DC resistivity survey. Large numbers of physical property measurements on drill core, including density, magnetic susceptibility, resistivity and chargeability, have also been carried out on recent and historical drill core and will be used to constrain the geophysical modelling. These new geophysical and petrophysical data will be integrated with historical geophysical data and will be used to better define existing targets and to generate new target areas.

Copper Mountain owns 75% of the Copper Mountain mine that produces approximately 100 million pounds of copper equivalent on average per year.