VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Precious metals explorer Seabridge Gold continues to expand the mineral resources at the Iron Cap deposit, at the company’s Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) project, in north-western British Columbia.

The Toronto-headquartered company said on Tuesday that the long and strong intersections support a revised mine plan that could substantially improve project economics for of the project, located 65 km north-west of Stewart.

Highlights from the latest three drill holes included 0.46 g/t gold and 0.38% copper over 237 m in Hole IC-17-68, including 0.27 g/t gold and 1.01% copper over 38 m and including 0.93 g/t gold and 0.09% copper over 44.4 m; Hole IC-17-69 returned 0.38 g/t gold and 0.31% copper over 954 m, including 0.71 g/t gold and 0.38% copper over 118 m; and Hole IC-1-70 which intercected 0.71 g/t gold and 0.71% copper over 925 m, including 0.98 g/t gold and 0.605 copper over 491 m and including 1.14 g/t gold and 1.11% copper over 104.6 m.

Seabridge said the drill holes were oriented using historical information and were designed to intercept the mineralised target down plunge of the strike to the zone as closely as topographic constraints permitted. More drilling is planned to refine the orientation.

“The reason we decided to mine Kerr first was the smaller size of the Iron Cap resource, but the extraordinary widths we are encountering in the drilling make it clear to us that Iron Cap will probably rival Kerr in size and grade,” stated Seabridge chairperson and CEO Rudi Fronk in a market update.

He pointed out that the September 2016 technical report for KSM provided a mine life of more than 50 years, that estimated project gold output averaging more than a million ounces a year for the first seven years of production. "We believe that moving up Iron Cap could significantly expand this period of exceptionally high gold production. There are very few if any environmentally approved, undeveloped projects with this potential level of gold production in the world today," Fronk said.

Seabridge holds a 100% interest in several North American gold resource projects. The company’s main assets are the KSM and Iskut properties located near Stewart, and the Courageous Lake gold project, located in Northwest Territories.