Rockcliff up 37.5% on Manitoba copper update
Rockcliff Metals Corp. [RCLF-CSE; ROO FSE; A2H60G-WKN] shares rallied Tuesday March 31 after the company released an updated resource estimate for its 100%-owned Rail deposit in central Manitoba.
Rockcliff is a well-funded Canadian resource development and exploration company with a fully functional 1,000 tonne-per-day leased processing and tailings facility as well as several advanced stage high-grade copper and zinc dominant VMS (volcanogenic massive sulphide) deposits in the Snow Lake area of Manitoba.
In May, 2019, Rockcliff said it has raised $20.8 million in flow-through funding and another $7.8 million in hard dollar funding, bringing the total raised to $28.7 million.
Rockcliff is the largest junior landholder in the area, controlling over 4,500 km2. It’s portfolio of properties includes eight of the highest-grade, undeveloped volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits and five lode-gold properties held by Goldpath Resources Corp., a unit of Rockcliff, including the historic Rex-Laguna gold mine, which has been optioned to Kinross Gold Corp. [K-TSX; KGC-NYSE].
The Rail Deposit is located within trucking distance of Rockcliff’s processing facility and is part of the company’s property portfolio in Snow Lake. The company said highlights from the updated estimate include a 42% increase in the indicated tonnes to 1.17 million tonnes, grading 3.52% copper equivalent.
The inferred tonnage has also increased to 730,000 tonnes at 4.09% copper equivalent (containing 50 million pounds of copper).
Rockcliff shares advanced on the news, rising 37.50% or $0.015 to 5.5 cents on volume of 260,581. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of 19 cents and $0.04.
“We are very pleased that the successful drill program at Rail has added substantially to the Rail Indicated classification tonnage,” said Rockcliff President and CEO Alistair Ross. “They have also identified over 730,000 tonnes of new, high-grade inferred tonnage,” he said. Ross said the Rail deposit remains open along strike and at depth and several additional nearby copper targets remain untested.
“We look forward to the completion of a preliminary economic assessment of the Rail deposit before the end of the second quarter of 2020,” he said.
In September, 2019, Rockcliff said it had commenced a 100,000-metre drilling program on its Snow Lake Project, marking the first step in implementing a strategy aimed at gaining sufficient knowledge of several resources that will allow the company to choose the optimal project to take into production at the earliest opportunity.
“Our aim is to begin treating material through our leased mill as soon as possible,” Ross said.
The company said the 16-month drill program would initially focus on enhancing several advanced-stage deposits.
On Tuesday, Rockcliff said the new mineral resource estimate considered drilling information available up to February 10, 2020. It said a total of 97 drill holes (totalling 32,767 metres) were reviewed from the entire database.