Great potential for rapid resource expansion
At the beginning of this year, Australian copper explorer American West Metals (WKN A3DE4Y / ASX AW1) announced an initial resource of 17.5 million tons averaging 1.2% copper and 3.4 g/t silver (205,000 tons of copper and 1.9 million ounces of silver) at its huge Storm copper project in Nunavut, Canada. Now that the company has secured AUD 10 million in fresh capital, this already excellent start is to be expanded as quickly as possible. Exploration work at Storm is therefore scheduled to start again in March!
American West plans to drill a total of around 22,000 meters of reverse circulation and diamond core drilling in the new field season, with the focus on expanding the first resource as quickly as possible. However, the potential beyond this is also enormous. In addition to four other discoveries that have already been made, the property in Nunavut has a 100-kilometer-long (!), largely unexplored, promising copper horizon, which is now also to be investigated in more detail.
Great potential for rapid resource expansion
First, however, in addition to the expansion of the existing resource, the definition of known high-grade copper discoveries such as Thunder (48.6 meters with 3% copper), Lightning Ridge (30.4 meters with 2.2% copper), Cyclone North (7.6 meters with 1% copper) and The Gap (1.5 meters with 4.4% copper and 2 meters with 2.5% copper) is on the agenda. American West will drill on strike and below existing deposits and copper discoveries.
Excitingly, all of these targets are characterized by broad zones of electromagnetic (EM) anomalies and “localized, highly conductive bull’s-eye style EM anomalies”, according to the company. And the EM anomalies that American West has explored at Storm to date show 100% correlation with higher grade (>2%) copper mineralization!
In addition, the company has reviewed and reinterpreted historical IP (Induced Polarization) data. This not only showed that some of the anomalies derived from this data correspond to the known copper deposits and structures at Storm. American West was also able to define numerous targets with potential for the discovery of additional copper mineralization!
American West plans to drill approximately 10,000 meters and conduct additional electromagnetic surveys to further develop these exciting targets.
Regional exploration to be significantly expanded
The Company believes that recent exploration activities and resource definition work have indicated that the Storm deposits and new copper discoveries represent only a small part of a very large sediment-hosted copper mineralized system.
As American West points out, high-grade copper sulphide mineralization has been discovered at a stratigraphic level below the known occurrences and at numerous other locations along the 100-kilometre-long prospective copper horizon.
These under-explored exploration areas will be expanded this year with both drilling and detailed geophysical surveys. The company will initially focus on the areas beneath the Storm deposits and the Blizzard, Tornado and Tempest prospects. Surface geophysics, including Moving Loop Electromagnetics (MLEM) and gravity surveys, as well as reverse circulation and diamond core drilling will be used to test the highest priority targets. In total, American West plans to drill 10,000 meters here.
The Blizzard and Tornado areas are located 5 to 10 kilometres east of Storm along strike and have a geological setting that American West considers to be identical to that of Storm. In addition, this area has numerous surface copper outcrops consistent with geophysical anomalies.
Conclusion: American West has already started the logistical preparations for the new exploration program, which will be much more extensive than previously planned due to the increased funding. We believe that there is a good chance that American West - also in cooperation with its Storm partner Aston Bay (WKN A2AUFP) - will be able to build on what we consider to be the excellent foundations of the initial resource estimate and the high-grade discoveries. This is because the known deposits are still open for expansion and the high-grade Thunder, Lightning Ridge and Cyclone North discoveries from 2023 are not even included in the new resource. At the same time, there are numerous under-explored targets within the 100-kilometer strike length of the regional copper horizon that the company will be exploring on a larger scale for the first time this year. In any case, we are very excited about what 2024 might bring for American West and look forward to a steady flow of news from the Storm project.
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