Northwest Copper up 19% on B.C. drilling results
Northwest Copper Corp. [NWST-TSXV] shares jumped 19% in active trading Monday after company released more results form 2022 drilling at its Kwanika-Stardust project in British Columbia.
The company said drill hole K-22-255 has returned one of the longest and highest-grade copper-gold intervals ever completed at Kwanika. It intersected almost 400 metres of 1.01% CuEq (copper equivalent), including 23.40 metres at 2.51% CuEq from 152.60 metres.
“Hole K-22-255 highlights the strength of the mineralizing system at Kwanika Central, with a very long interval averaging 1% copper equivalent,’’ said Northwest Copper President and CEO Peter Ball.
The shares advanced on the news, rising 19% or $0.04 to 25 cents on active volume of 1.13 million. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of 74 cents and 19 cents.
Northwest Copper is a new diversified copper-gold explorer and developer with a pipeline of projects in British Columbia.
The company is the product of the merger of Serengeti Resources and Sun Metals Corp. and is led by Peter Ball, a geologist who previously spend 13 years with Newmont Corp., [NGT-TSX, NEM-NYSE], the world’s leading gold producer,
The transaction was designed to consolidate the contiguous copper-gold exploration and development assets that included Serengeti’s Kwanika project and Sun Metals’ Stardust project. Both of these assets are expected to benefit from operational synergies as they are advanced with a combined development strategy.
At the time of the merger deal, Serengeti was advancing its Kwanika copper-gold project in partnership with POSCO DAEWOOD and exploring its extensive portfolio of properties in north-central B.C.
It hoped to complete a pre-feasibility study at Kwanika that would examine the viability of a proposed open-pit and bulk underground copper-gold mine. However, the company didn’t have the funds to carry out that plan.
Back in early January, 2023, Northwest said a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) has outlined a project that would aim to mine approximately 96 million tonnes of material in a combination of open pit and underground operations from the 100%-owned Kwanika and Stardust deposits. The PEA contemplates a 22,000 tonnes per day process plant, producing high-quality copper concentrate with significant gold and silver by-product credits.
The PEA envisages initial capital of $567.9 million with a construction period of two years. In the PEA, mineralized resources would include mineralized material from four sources, including the Kwanika Central Pit, Kwanika Central underground block cave, Kwanika South open pit and Stardust underground.
Commenting on the latest drill results, Ball said hole K-22-255 shows a typical Kwanika pattern of copper dominant material higher in the hole then becoming much richer in gold at depth. He said gold represents approximately 35% of the annual revenue in the recent PEA at Kwanika-Stardust. Ball went on to say that K-22-255 demonstrates the strength of the gold system within the strong, continuous copper mineralization.