DRC gears up for pre-feasibility at Afton

Vancouver — DRC Resources (DRC-T) has hired Vancouver-based Behre Dolbear & Company to perform a pre-feasibility study on the company’s Afton copper-gold project, near Kamloops, BC.

The study will focus on the mineral resource, mining methods, mineral processing, and permitting as well as estimate the capital and operating costs associated with the potential development of an underground mining operation.

To date, copper-gold mineralization has been traced over a 1,000-metre strike length, and drilling indicates that the mineralized zone remains open beyond the indicated mineral resource boundaries to the northeast and southwest.

The last assays from its ongoing drilling campaign have provided shareholders with more encouraging results. Hole 75 intersected 300 metres averaging 1.09% copper, 0.70 gram gold, 0.09 gram palladium and 1.89 grams silver per tonne, starting 384 metres down-hole. This included a 108-metre section that averaged 1.73% copper, 1.15 gram gold, 0.05 gram palladium and 3.03 grams silver per tonne.

Mineralization is hosted in a steeply plunging body that strikes southwest from the base of the 274-metre-deep open-pit. This structure, known as the Main zone, averages 70 metres wide, 600 metres long and about 775 metres deep. In addition to it, DRC has delineated the Northeast Extension zone, which measures 30 metres wide and is an en echelon continuation of the Main zone.

The Main zone is estimated to have an indicated resource of 34.3 million tonnes grading 1.55% copper, plus 1.14 grams gold, 0.125 gram palladium and 3.42 grams silver per tonne, whereas the Northeast Extension zone has an indicated resource of about 1.1 million tonnes averaging 1.02% copper, 0.86 gram gold, 0.1 gram palladium and 5.49 grams silver. A cutoff grade of 0.5% copper was used for these calculations.

The Afton deposit is in the 35-km-long Iron Mask Batholith at the northwestern end of the Iron Mask pluton. These intrusive rocks consist of Triassic-aged diorites and gabbros hosted in andesitic and basaltic rocks breccias, tuffs, mudstones argillites and limestones of the Nicola Group.