Toronto- and New York-listed Hudbay Minerals has identified three new deposits at its Copper World project, located on wholly-owned private land in Arizona. This now takes the project’s deposits to a total of seven, covering a combined 7 km with mineralised occurrences.
“Our 2021 drill programme at Copper World proved that the previously discovered deposits remained open along strike, and we are highly encouraged by the identification of three new deposits in the area,” said president and CEO Peter Kukielski.
The programme has consisted of condemnation, exploration and confirmation drilling over the company’s patented private land claims at Copper World. As of June 30, about 166 holes were completed totalling more than 91 000 ft of drilling. As of August 31, Hudbay has received and validated the assay results for 130 of these holes and the results continue to exceed the company’s expectations.
The programme resulted in the discovery of three new deposits, including significant volumes of high-grade copper sulphide and oxide mineralisation starting, in most cases, near surface or at shallow depth. These three new deposits are called Bolsa, South Limb and North Limb.
The program also confirmed and increased the confidence in the size and quality of the Copper World, Broad Top Butte, Peach and Elgin deposits.
Drill hole 186 intersected 263 feet of 1.11% copper starting from surface, drill hole #190 intersected 205 feet of 1.39% copper starting from surface, drill hole #191 intersected 404 feet of 1.50% copper starting from surface, drill hole #139 intersected 125 feet of 1.34% copper, drill hole #177 intersected 121 feet of 1.32% copper and drill hole #118 intersected 160 feet of 1.15% copper.
“Copper World is growing into an attractive copper development project in our organic pipeline, and we remain on track for an initial inferred resource estimate before the end of the year and a preliminary economic assessment in the first half of 2022,” said Kukielski.
Hudbay sees Copper World as a “very interesting, either alternative or add-on” to the adjacent Rosemont project, which continues to be in legal limbo.