Cyclone packs a punch for American West in Canada

Just days after American West Metals’ share price exploded when it announced a $7m capital raise to fund work on its massive indium resource project in Utah, the company has revealed further outstanding copper grades at the Cyclone copper deposit at its Canadian Storm project.

Spectacular drill results, running up to an eye-catching 27.3 per cent copper and 80 grams per tonne silver have rolled in for  Storm.  

Fresh results from the Cyclone deposit include 12.1m at a whopping 5.6 per cent copper, with a 0.5m hit going off-the-scale at 27.3 % copper. Another 18.2m intersection graded 1.1% copper, pushing the case for a resource upgrade and hinting that Storm’s copper system is much bigger than first thought.

The orebody remains open to the north and northwest, while geotechnical drilling confirms thick, shallow, flat-lying copper zones – just the sort of geometry miners seek out for open-pit potential.

Silver values are also proving a handy bonus too, consistently tracking the copper grades with peaks of 80g/t Ag, adding extra shine as silver prices continue their upward march.

The company reckons Storm could become northern Canada’s only near-term copper development and it’s not hard to see why. The current campaign – a mix of RC and diamond drilling – is hitting copper sulphides in every hole, both within and outside the existing resource envelope.

Storm’s mineralisation sits in brecciated dolomitic mudstones within faulted Allen Bay sediments, a setup reminiscent of classic Kupferschiefer and Kipushi-style systems. With copper-rich chalcocite dominating, metallurgical testing has already produced a 53.1% copper concentrate.

The project sits on Crown land in Nunavut, a key piece of Canada’s critical minerals puzzle and government agencies are already eyeing Storm as a strategic domestic copper supplier.

David O’Neill, Managing Director of American West Metals commented: “The drilling program continues to discover more high-grade, near-surface copper mineralisation at Storm. The drilling at Cyclone has intersected thick intervals of copper mineralisation very close to surface, including exceptional high-grade zones with individual assays up to 27.3% Cu. The drilling was designed to upgrade the current inferred resources and to gather geotechnical data in the current open-pit wall designs.  The latest RC drilling results also continue to clearly demonstrate the upgrade potential of the Storm copper deposits, with 100% of the drilling intersecting copper sulphides within, and outside of, the current resource envelope.”

Meanwhile, American West is also turning heads in the US, where its West Desert indium project in Utah has attracted the attention of the Governor of Utah, with meetings scheduled this week.

Originally identified by Cominco late last century, Storm is now shaping up under American West as a genuine Arctic copper powerhouse. With assays from the latest holes due within a fortnight, investors will be watching closely to see just how big this storm can get.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au