A deal has been approved whereby American Bullion Minerals (VSE) will acquire an 80% interest in the Red Chris copper-gold property in northwestern British Columbia.
The junior will pay Falconbridge and Norcen Energy Resources (TSE) $298,000 plus 660,000 units for the interest.
Teck (TSE) retains a 20% interest (half of which is carried) and can boost the holding to 55% by funding a final feasibility study and placing the project in production.
American Bullion believes the full potential of the property has yet to be realized. The property covers a large porphyry system with at least an 8-sq.-km surface expression, only a portion of which was covered by previous exploration.
Work dating back to the 1970s outlined a drill-indicated resource of 41 million tonnes grading 0.56% copper and 0.34 grams gold per tonne, based on 44 rotary-percussion holes and 69 diamond drill holes.
American Bullion commissioned an independent engineering report which concluded that the deposit contains a higher-grade core, estimated at 30 million tonnes grading 0.73% copper and 0.48 grams gold using a 0.45% copper cutoff.
The deposit, as outlined to date, measures 1,500 metres long and varies in width from 500 metres in the west to 90 metres in the east. It remains open at depth, with a number of the previous drill holes bottoming in mineralization 180 metres below surface.
Drilling will be carried out this year in an effort to expand the central zone of higher copper-gold grades and test for expansions along strike and to depth.
American Bullion is also planning to follow up previous geological, geochemical and geophysical work which identified large exploration targets to the east and west of the known resource.
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