September 04, 2008 Nevada Copper Reports Significant Project Developments
September 4, 2008 - Nevada Copper Corp. (TSX: NCU) ("Nevada Copper") announces significant developments and progress at its Pumpkin Hollow Copper Property located in Western Nevada including:
17,000 meters of drilling completed to date, including 3,000 meters of hydrological and geotechnical drilling;
Third drill rig added;
Iron deposit metallurgical test-work underway;
16,000 meters of historic core being assayed for gold, silver and molybdenum; and,
Permits submitted
Infill and Step-out Drilling Program
In excess of 40,000 meters of drilling is scheduled to be completed in 2008 on the Pumpkin Hollow Copper Property. Initial drilling this spring focused primarily on metallurgical, geotechnical and hydrological drilling to support project design and permitting. To date, 17,000 meters has been drilled including 14,000 meters of infill and step-out drilling on the copper deposits and 3,000 meters of hydrological and geotechnical drilling to support mine design. The current work program including an additional 23,000 meters of drilling this fall will be incorporated into an updated resource estimate followed by the commencement of a Definitive Feasibility Study ("Feasibility Study") by the 4th quarter of 2008.
A total of 14,000 meters of resource drilling has been completed in 37 holes to date. A third drill rig has been recently added this month to support the mineral resource drilling program. The program is designed to convert inferred mineable resources to measured and indicated in advance of the Feasibility Study in addition to ongoing step-out drilling on the copper deposits. Results from 8 holes have been reported with the balance either being processed or awaiting assaying. Further drill results will be released as they become available throughout the remainder of 2008.
Geotechnical drilling totaled 1,600 meters and was directed towards optimizing the shaft location for the exploration and development of the high grade underground East and E2 deposits. Hydrological drilling of 1,400 meters included the installation of an additional four monitor holes strategically located up and down gradient for collection of baseline data for overall project permitting and design.
Iron Deposit Metallurgical Testwork
Nevada Copper's Pumpkin Hollow Deposit contains a significant open pittable NI 43-101 compliant iron resource of 255 million ton at a grade of 35% Fe. Metallurgical drilling took place on the magnetite rich zones of the South Deposit to provide confirmatory iron beneficiation data to augment the detailed metallurgical testwork done on the copper deposit in 2007.
Over 25 tons of high magnetite mineralization was collected for bulk pilot scale testing. The drilling also confirmed the grade, thickness, and continuity of mineralization. Currently samples are undergoing bench scale testing at the University of Minnesota's Coleraine Minerals Research Laboratory in order to optimize design parameters for the pilot scale test planned for later this fall.
Drill results announced here represent true thicknesses.
SOUTH DEPOSIT IRON DEPOSIT METALLURGICAL DRILLING -- Iron greater than 20% Fe
Drill Hole #
From
(m)
To
(m)
Length
(m)
Length
(ft)
Copper
(%)
Gold
(g/t)
Silver
(g/t)
Iron
(%)
NC08-17
85.3
237.7
152.4
500
0.14
0.025
1.0
50.1
NC08-21
201.1
208.7
7.6
25
0.008
0.017
1.2
40.2
222.5
277.4
52.9
180
0.010
0.043
1.1
38.6
NC08-26
67.1
272.8
205.7
675
0.11
0.010
0.9
55.1
An additional 14 tons of sample material was collected for iron metallurgical testing, should it be necessary from historic core reject secured and stored at a Provo, Utah warehouse.
Re-Assay Program
Sampling of historic core holes continued, with over 4,100 core reject samples collected from 94 holes for a total of 16,000 meters of drilling. The recent sampling represents cost savings of approximately $ 4 million to the Company when compared to current core drilling costs. These particular samples were stored in a U.S. Steel warehouse located in Provo. The drill samples were boxed, cataloged, and stored since the 1960's and 1970's. This program focused on ore intervals that lacked gold, silver, and molybdenum assays. Much of the initial historic drilling only assayed for iron and copper. The samples were collected by personnel from North American Exploration of Kaysville, Utah under the supervision of Nevada Copper staff. The samples are being delivered to American Assay Laboratories of Reno for analysis.
Permitting
Nevada Copper has prepared and submitted permit applications to regulatory authorities for its advanced exploration/development program which includes the installation of shaft access to the East and E-2 underground deposits. Shaft and facility design is currently in progress. Approval for the advanced/development permit is anticipated by the fourth quarter of 2008.
About Nevada Copper
Nevada Copper is an emerging copper company, responsibly developing its advanced stage Pumpkin Hollow copper-iron property into Nevada's next copper mine.
Nevada Copper announced robust economic results from an NI43-101 compliant Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") in March, 2008. The PEA evaluates an integrated underground and open pit mining operation with a standard milling and floatation plant that will produce high-grade copper concentrates. Annual production will average 95,000 tons of copper per year over a mine life exceeding 20 years. Highlights from the PEA at copper prices from $1.75 to $3.00 per lb. copper are as follows:
Net present Value $765 Million to $1.9 Billion with an 8% discount rate;
Internal Rate of Return 20.5% to 29.3%;
Operating Cost $0.57/lb of copper, direct and $1.02/lb total, net of by-product credits;
Capital Cost Estimate $665 Million before contingencies and working capital, $780 inclusive;
Project payback from
start of construction 3.1 to 4.8 years
The designed mining operation would have a 60,000 ton per day concentrator throughput. Metallurgical recoveries are estimated at 89% for copper, 70% for gold and 68% for silver.
In November 2007, Nevada Copper updated its National Instrument 43-101 compliant resource estimate. At a 0.2% copper cutoff grade, the measured and indicated copper resource is 3.96 billion pounds of copper, contained in 343 million tons grading 0.58% copper and 635 thousand ounces of gold and 26.6 million ounces of silver. An inferred copper resource of 3.91 billion pounds of copper is contained in 438 million tons grading 0.45% copper and 647 thousand ounces of gold and 30.1 million ounces of silver. Additionally, there are also potentially open-pittable iron resources of 144 million tons of contained iron in 656 million tons at an average grade of 22 per cent iron at an iron cut-off of 10 per cent.
Within these large resources is a significant high grade copper resource in the East and E2 deposits. Using a 0.75% copper cutoff grade, the measured and indicated resources contain 1.2 billion pounds of copper in 41.6 million tons of material grading 1.46% copper and, in addition, the inferred resource contains 635 million pounds of copper within 25.3 million tons grading 1.25% copper.
Nevada Copper continues its systematic fast-track program to develop its advanced stage Pumpkin Hollow Property with the resource delineation drilling program, metallurgical, geotechnical, hydrological, condemnation data and environmental baseline data for purposes of a Feasibility Study planned to commence in 2008.
The Pumpkin Hollow project is under the supervision of Gregory French, CPG #10708, a Qualified Person as defined in Canadian National Instrument 43-101, who is responsible for the preparation of the technical information in this news release. All assaying and whole rock geochemistry is processed at the American Assay Laboratories (AAL) in Reno, Nevada. Samples are delivered from the project core logging facility to AAL by Nevada Copper or AAL personnel. A Quality Assurance and Quality Control Assay Protocol have been implemented whereby blanks and standards are inserted into the assay stream and check samples are sent to Chemex-Reno and Inspectorate-Reno laboratories.
Nevada Copper has 40.6 million shares outstanding and is well financed with no debt. For additional information about Nevada Copper please visit our website at www.nevadacopper.com
NEVADA COPPER CORP.
Giulio T. Bonifacio
President & CEO
This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, including the likelihood of commercial mining and possible future financings are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include unsuccessful exploration results, changes in metals prices, changes in the availability of funding for mineral exploration, unanticipated changes in key management personnel and general economic conditions. Mining is an inherently risky business. Accordingly the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on the Company and the risks and challenges of its business, investors should review the Company's annual filings that are available at www.sedar.com
For further information call:
Eugene Toffolo, Corporate Communications
Phone: 604-681-5755
Tollfree: 1-877-687-5755
OR:
Giulio T. Bonifacio, President & CEO
Phone: 604-699-0023
Email:
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