American West Metals has continued to ride a copper wave at its Storm project in Canada after revealing more thick and high-grade intervals near surface, with an impressive headline 1.5m hit going 8 per cent.
The company says its “outstanding results” point to the ongoing consistency and scale of the copper mineralisation … with the promise of more to come.
And the ASX market clearly agrees. American West’s share price has more than doubled in the past fortnight, jumping from just 5.2 cents on June 8 to 12c at yesterday’s close of trading – a boost of nearly 131 per cent in that period.
Considering investor information provider Undervalued Equity believes high-grade copper starts with concentrations of 1.5 per cent, there is little doubt market punters will be taking a close look at American West’s new 8 per cent revelation.
The company shifted up a gear last week when it declared its belief that it had a hand on the tail of a copper tiger within Storm’s tenement boundaries after a “spectacular” gravity survey.
Management said it believed a newly-identified underground electromagnetic target reflected a massive untapped copper system. The company also revealed it had found chunks of green malachite-altered rocks sitting at surface in outcrop.
Now, the latest results from the company’s 4100N zone have added to the theme. The new 1.5m-wide intersection was contained within a bigger 29m drill core, with targets being informed by recently-concluded geophysical electromagnetic mapping.
Management last week described its evolving deposit as a potential “Mother Lode”.
American West Metals managing director Dave O’Neill said: “Further outstanding results have been received for the current drilling program at the 4100N Zone, with assays continuing to show the consistency and scale of the high-grade near-surface copper mineralisation. Copper grades of 8% Cu highlight the quality of the mineralisation, and there is opportunity to expand the higher-grade zones with the mineralisation open in all directions. The largest of the geophysical targets is located directly below the 4100N Zone, and immediately adjacent to the large fault that we interpret as the main conduit for the copper mineralisation coming to surface.”
The company’s biggest 29m core section averaged out at a concentration of 1.2 per cent copper from 62.5m, including 3m grading 5 per cent from 86.9m.
Management has previously likened the geology underpinning its Storm project as analogous to that of other sediment-hosted copper mineral systems in Botswana, the Congo and Zambia. It believes it is working with sulphide-style mineralisation – something of a holy grail for downstream refining considerations.
Results from a further three drillholes at 4100N prompted similar observations, with a 3m hit at 3.7 per cent copper discovered in drillhole SR23-14 and a 1.5m intersection grading 6.5 per cent copper in drillhole SR23-07.
Within the four drillhole results published by the company, copper grades reliably increase at between 75m and 90m depth, adding weight to its belief it has a substantial and open underground system.
American West is now getting on with its drill run and while the frosty Canadian winter is receding, it will be hoping Storm has far from reached its peak.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Jonathon Davidson
