Friday, September 24, 2010 YTC Resources could have found very large copper system at Nymagee by Proactive Investors YTC Resources (ASX: YTC) has got exploration off to a flying start at the Nymagee Copper Mine in New South Wales with the first of six planned diamond drill holes recording an intersection approximately 55m below the deepest mine level (Level 8) of 8.9m @ 7.2% Cu, 24g/t Ag & 0.16g/t Au from 370.5m.
The high grade intersection from hole NMD001 corresponds to the "Nymagee Lode" position, which was selectively mined in the period 1880 to 1918 to approximately 250m depth recording production of 422,000t @ 5.8% Cu.
YTC has also completed a wedge hole, NMD001W1, approximately 30m above NMD001, to test the vertical continuity of the copper lode and has intersected massive copper and iron sulphides from 346.8m to 352.3m, which appear to be of similar grade and width to the intersection in hole NMD001.
Rimas Kairaitis, CEO, said ?this is a very exciting result and identifies Nymagee as a very large copper system. This hole confirms the continuity of the high grade Nymagee copper system below the historic workings and gives increasing confidence that the Nymagee Mine will evolve to complement the proposed development of the Hera Deposit, located 4.5km to the south."
"Also of considerable interest is the broad, low-grade copper mineralisation on the eastern side of the lode. The footwall lodes indicate a very large copper mineral system and may form a low-grade, bulk tonnage exploration target.?
YTC also believes the Nymagee copper mineralisation has strong affinities to the world class CSA Copper Mine, located approximately 90km north along strike, which has a recorded production of >1.5Mt of copper.
The company currently has two drill rigs operating on the Nymagee Copper Mine and a third drill rig is actively drilling exploration targets on the Hera Project. The current programme of 6 drill holes for Nymagee will now be expanded.
YTC's initial drill programme at the Nymagee Mine has been designed to target resources complementary to the company's Hera Project, located only 4.5km to the south.
YTC is progressing a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) on the Hera Project to establish a shallow underground mine producing gold, silver, lead, zinc and copper.
The company considers that exploration upside exists at Hera, not only in the extension of the existing lenses, but also in the interpretation of the project to evolve into a major gold-base metal system consistent with the pedigree of Cobar-style deposits.
The potential to integrate high grade copper feed from the Nymagee Mine into the proposed Hera plant means that these initial results have immediate positive implications for the company's proposed development of the Hera gold-base metal deposit.
YTC considers these results present a strong economic case to complement the Hera mine development by the future inclusion of ore-feed from the Nymagee Mine.
Additional resource drilling, metallurgy and mining studies will be required for the inclusion of the Nymagee mineralisation into a final mining study. This work can be completed over the next two quarters whilst awaiting mine permitting at Hera.
Hole NMD001 is the first hole beneath the mine drilled from the eastern side of the Nymagee Mine, and the hole also identified a number of broad, lower grade "Footwall Zones" of copper mineralisation.
The Footwall Zones record intersections of:
- 41.4m @ 0.25% Cu from 132.8m - 24.4m @ 0.43% Cu from 234.6m - 86.3m @ 0.35% Cu from 284.2m
Additional drilling will be designed to further assess the potential of the Footwall Zones to form a low-grade, bulk-tonnage ore-body.
In addition to hole NMD001W1, YTC has also completed hole NMD007, approximately 250m north of hole NMD001 and targeting 50m below the deepest historic mine level. NMD007 intersected the Nymagee Lode position as a broad zone of stringer and disseminated iron and copper sulphides from 361-387m.
The hole also passed through lower grade Footwall Zones from 264-277m and from 292-357.5m.
The Nymagee Mine drill holes are being selectively cased with a view to completing 3D downhole EM in the next quarter.
YTC purchased an 80% interest in the Nymagee Mine Joint Venture from CBH Resources (ASX: CBH) as part of the Hera Project purchase transaction in September 2009.
YTC is the manager, operator and sole funder of the Joint Venture. If YTC continues to sole fund, it will earn an additional 1% interest for every $75,000 of further Joint Venture expenditure, to increase its Joint Venture interest to a maximum of 90%.
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