Imperial ships first concentrate

Vancouver — Imperial Metals (III-T) has shipped its first load of concentrate from the re-activated Mount Polley copper-gold-silver mine in south-central British Columbia.

The 11,500 tonnes of material shipped carry a grade of 24.5% copper plus 27.9 grams gold and 76.2 grams silver per tonne. That’s equivalent to 5.6 million lbs. copper, 9,340 oz. gold and 23,700 oz. silver.

So far, most of the ore has come from low-grade stockpiles, as well as the Bell and Wight pits.

Situated near Williams Lake, the mine is expected to produce 60 million lbs. copper, 50,000 oz. gold, and 250,000 oz. silver in 2006.

Drilling of a copper oxide showing known as the Pond zone returned 51 metres grading 0.9% copper, 0.7 gram gold and 11.7 grams silver, whereas another zone, known as 92, returned 70 metres of 0.5% copper, 0.5 gram gold and 4.4 grams silver. Meanwhile, drilling on the Southeast zone identified mineralization with a high gold-to-copper ratio and low stripping ratio.

At presstime, Imperial was trading at $6.70 and had a market capitalization of $190 million based on 28.1 million shares issued.