New Gold advances on New Afton, B.C., drilling results
New Gold Inc. (NGD-TSX, NYSE) shares advanced Thursday after the company said it has intersected wide, high-grade copper-gold porphyry mineralization at the K Zone at its New Afton mine in British Columbia.
“The latest K-Zone drilling includes some of the best mineralize intervals drilled at the New Afton mine and expands the mineralized envelope, highlighting the potential for a new mining zone close to existing mine infrastructure,’’ said New Gold President and CEO Patrick Godin.
“The confirmation of high-grade bornite-bearing mineralization demonstrates the high mineral prospectivity around the New Afton mine and provides a high level of confidence as we look to grow K-Zone with drilling from the underground exploration drift,’’ he said.
“Combined with resource conversion opportunities such as C-Zone Extension, East Extension and D-Zone, and several other near-mine and regional exploration targets, K-Zone is a key component in our strategy to extend mine life with minimal capital investment.’’
New Gold shares rallied on the news, rising 4.9% or 14 cents to $2.99. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $3.00 and $1.17.
New Gold is a Canada-focused intermediate gold mining company. Its two core producing assets are the Rainy River mine in Ontario and the New Afton copper-gold mine, which is located 350 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.
New Afton is expected to produce up to 70,000 ounces of gold this year and up to 60 million pounds of copper.
As New Gold continues to execute on its exploration strategy to extend the New Afton mine life beyond 2030, exploration efforts remain focused on potential near-mine zones located above the C-Zone extraction level to minimize capital investment and maximize free cash flow generation.
In keeping with that goal, the company is developing an exploration drift to provide additional drill platforms. The new drift is scheduled to be completed in June (2024) and will be utilized to accelerate exploration drilling in the eastern part of the mine, including better defining the high-grade extension of the K-Zone.
Meanwhile, the company said underground exploration drilling conducted from C-Zone infrastructure intersected bornite-rich mineralization over strike lengths exceeding 200 metres and estimated true widths of up to 40 metres.
High-grade copper-gold porphyry mineralization intersected within the K-Zone included 2.01% copper and 1.79 g/t gold mineralization (3.22% copper equivalent CuEq) over 217 metres core length (40 metres estimated true width) in borehole EA24-485, including 1.85% copper and 3.67 g/t gold mineralization (4.23% CuEq) over 31 metres core length and 3.23% copper and 1.98 g/t gold mineralization (4.62% CuEq) over 78 metres core length).
C-Zone is the fourth block cave at New Afton, after completion of Lift 1 in 2022 and the currently producing B3 cave. New Gold said the operation will take advantage of the existing excess processing capacity at the mill to process up to 16,000 tonnes per day from the C-Zone.