Exploration company American Pacific Mining on Monday announced results from the first drill hole of the 2020 drill programme at the Madison copper/gold project, in Montana, including the highest-grade material that the company has yet reported.
Earn-in partner Kennecott Exploration, part of the Rio Tinto group, intersected 69.4 g/t, which the company said further demonstrated the strength of the system.
Drill hole 21 contained 23.61 m of 2.19% copper and 1.7 m of 69.4 g/t gold.
“Historical drilling has produced some very high-grade intercepts, including 30.18 m at 24.50 g/t gold in hole UG17-05 and 61.63 m at 6.97% copper in hole C05-06 and results to date indicate down-plunge continuity of known high-grade mineralisation,” stated American Pacific president Eric Saderholm.
Kennecott has an additional eight holes at ALS Laboratories for assay, and while assays were taking longer than was typical owing to Covid-19 related delays, results were expected in the coming weeks.
The Madison project is currently under an earn-in, joint venture agreement, whereby Kennecott may spend $30-million to earn up to 70%.