Empire Mine Land Position Increased

RNS Number : 1967R

Phoenix Global Mining Ltd

27 February 2019

 

Phoenix Global Mining Ltd / Ticker: AIM:PGM / Sector: Mining

27 February 2019

Phoenix Global Mining Ltd ('Phoenix' or the 'Company')

Empire Mine land position increased from 1,837 to 5,717 acres (7.43 to 23.14 square kilometres)

Option over Gordon Lake exploration property allowed to lapse

Phoenix Global Mining Ltd (AIM:PGM), the AIM quoted North American-focused base and precious metals exploration and development company, is pleased to announce a threefold increase in its  Empire Mine land holding, to the north and west of the Horseshoe Claim Block at Windy Devil and at Navarre Creek.  194 new claims have been staked covering extensions to known mineralisation.   

Also and in order to focus on its increased Empire Mine interests, the Company has allowed its option to acquire an 80% interest in the Gordon Lake gold property in Canada to lapse.

Highlights:

o  The Company has increased its Empire Mine land position by 3,880 acres, and now has a total land package of 5,717 acres (from 7.43 to 23.14 square kilometres) by staking and filing 194 new unpatented claims in two blocks.

o  The Windy Devil claim block, contiguous with the Horseshoe Block, covers the identifiable extensions of the Horseshoe Block mineral trends and includes more than 30 historical prospects, shafts, and adits. The 2018 Horseshoe sampling results reported grades as high as 9.19% copper, 580 g/t silver, 2.02 g/t gold, and 20% lead in surface rock chips.

o  The Navarre Creek claim block contains a volcanic-hosted epithermal "hot springs" type alteration zone and a 2.5-kilometre brecciated jasperoid, which is geologically similar to the Carlin Trend Gold Belt in Nevada suggesting excellent potential for near surface precious metal discoveries.

o  The Company has decided to allow its option to acquire an 80% interest in the Gordon Lake gold property in the North West Territories of Canada to lapse. 

Link to figures outlining the new land package http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/1967R_1-2019-2-26.pdf

Dennis Thomas, the Company's CEO, said, "The mineralised extensions along strike from the Empire Mine in the Horseshoe Block, as well as extensive surface mapping and geological interpretation during the 2018 field season, made the expansion into Windy Devil imperative. This new claim block contains more than 30 unnamed prospects, including multiple previously mined shafts and adits.

"The larger Navarre Creek Block to the west was also recognised during the 2018 field season as a highly prospective target area based on the classic hot springs style alteration evident on the surface. The presence of a 2.5-kilometre long, highly brecciated jasperoid occurrence within the claim block suggests favourable structural geology for gold mineralisation similar to the Carlin Trend in Nevada.

"The Company's immediate priority remains the Empire copper deposit. However, now that we control the Horseshoe, Windy Devil, and Navarre Blocks, we have secured a substantial district footprint that will allow future operations and expansion easier to navigate. Given the focus on the Empire Mine property and the wider district, including the two cobalt properties on the Idaho Cobalt Belt, we felt it was prudent to allow our option on the Gordon Lake gold property in Canada to lapse and focus purely on Idaho."

Horseshoe - Windy Devil - Navarre Creek

The Horseshoe, Windy Devil, and Navarre Creek Blocks are situated to the north and to the west of the Empire Mine property.  Horseshoe and Windy Devil are contiguous with Empire, while the Navarre Creek Block sits approximately 2.0-kilometres west of Windy Devil. Production from mineralised zones within the Horseshoe Block have been well documented, mostly prior to WWII, and include ore shipments from the old mines within the claims holdings (Horseshoe Mine, Doughboy Mine, Blue Bird Mine, and White Knob Mine) which all produced high-grade silver, lead, and zinc, as well as copper and gold. 2018 surface sampling results from Horseshoe reported metal grades as high as 9.19% copper, 580 g/t silver, 2.02 g/t gold, and 20% lead in surface rock chips, and the extension of the orebody is seen to extend into the Windy Devil claim block, where there are more than 30 historical shafts, adits and prospects to be investigated and sampled.

The Navarre Creek Block covers an area of secondary alteration thought to be epithermal in nature and includes over 2.5-kilometres of highly brecciated, west-trending jasperoid intersecting of argillically and silicically altered Eocene Challis volcanics. The altered volcanic rocks are similar to the mineralised rocks in northern Nevada such as those found in the Carlin Trend.

Gordon Lake option

In February 2018, the Company acquired an option to acquire an 80% interest in the Gordon Lake gold property from ExGen Resources Inc. Pursuant to the terms of the option, the Company was required to spend a further $250,000 by February 2019.  Given the potential of the Empire Mine and particularly in view of the Company's increased acreage, the Company decided to allow the option to lapse.  The Company's 2018 accounts are expected to include a write-off of the option, which has a carried value of $155,000. 

Qualified Person

The information in this announcement has been reviewed by Roger Turner A.C.S.M., M.Sc., M.I.M.M.M., C.Eng., Chief Technical Officer and Director of the Company. Mr Turner is a graduate mining engineer from the Camborne School of Mines with an MSc in Economic Geology from Leicester University with more than 40 years' experience in mine development, construction and operation and is a qualified person under the AIM Rules. Mr Turner consents to the inclusion of the information in the form and context in which they appear.

Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.

For further information please visit www.pgmining.com or contact:

Phoenix Global Mining Ltd	Dennis Thomas / Richard Wilkins	Tel: [phone] (Dennis) /  [phone] (Richard)
SP Angel (Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker)	Lindsay Mair / Caroline Rowe	Tel: [phone]
Brandon Hill Capital (Joint Broker)	Jonathan Evans / Oliver Stansfield	Tel: [phone]
Blytheweigh (Financial PR)	Tim Blythe / Camilla Horsfall / Megan Ray	Tel: [phone]

Notes

Phoenix's flagship project is a brownfield, past producing, copper, gold, silver, zinc and tungsten underground mine, the Empire Mine near Mackay in Idaho. Phoenix acquired an 80% interest in the property in 2015. Based on a total of 315 drill holes a NI 43-101 compliant oxide resource was completed in late 2017. A PEA (preliminary economic assessment) for an open pit heap leach solvent extraction and electrowinning ("SX-EW") mine was completed in April 2018 with a design capacity of 8,000 tonnes of copper cathode a year. In June 2018 a campaign consisting of RC and diamond drilling was started. This programme was designed to upgrade and increase the oxide reserves, provide samples for ongoing metallurgical testwork, geotechnical and hydrological studies and condemnation drilling for the heap leach pad site, waste dump and plant site. At the same time the consultants were appointed to complete a NI 43-101 compliant Bankable Feasibility Study ("BFS"). The lead consultant is RPM Global who are supported by Samuel Engineering, both based in Denver, Colorado. Cascade Earth Sciences of Pocatello, Idaho have been working on environmental and permitting issues since 2016 and form part of the BFS team. Golder Associates are designing the heap leach pad and ponds, and Call and Nicholas are carrying out the open pit slope stability studies.

At Empire, it is estimated that only 5% to 7% of the potential ore system has been explored to date and, accordingly, there is significant opportunity to increase the resource through phased exploration; the current resource relates to the oxide resource only, which remains open along strike and does not include the deeper, higher grade sulphides. In addition, Phoenix has increased the claim area from 813 acres at the time of its acquisition to 5,717 acres, mainly to the northwest and west, and in so doing has increased the potential for additional oxide and sulphide resources to a total strike length of approximately 5.38-kilometres including another brownfield mine, the Horseshoe Mine, which is now within the property boundary and more than 30 historical shafts, adits on the newly acquired Windy Devil claims.  

In 2018 the Company completed 8,604 metres of drilling at Empire. The analytical and geological data from this 93-hole drilling program and 106 channel surface sampling programme is currently being evaluated and modelled in preparation for a Q1 2019 updated resource calculation as part of the ongoing BFS for the initial open pit mine.  Phoenix staff and consultants are systematically assessing and evaluating the recent data and incorporating this data into the existing database which includes all of the information used in the November 2017 resource estimate and in the April 2018 Preliminary Economic Assessment.

As reported throughout late 2018, mineralised drill hole intercepts were prevalent in multiple directions outside of the previously modelled open pit mine, particularly to the north in the newly discovered Red Star area. The 2018 drilling programme obtained numerous high-grade interceptions, including grades of 12.05% copper, 20% lead, 5.83% zinc, 2.52 g/t gold and 580 g/t silver, all of which will be included in an updated resource estimate expected in Q1 2019. Known mineralisation now covers a strike length of 5.38 kilometres within the Company's claim block. The April 2018 pit design covered 1.0 kilometres of this. The Company continues to believe that the Empire Mine Project and the surrounding claims holdings represents a major mineralised system.

The Company also holds two prospective cobalt properties in Idaho, US, which are located north of the Empire Mine.  These are situated close to the town of Cobalt and are close to projects being advanced by Canadian junior miners, including eCobalt Solutions and First Cobalt.  Fieldwork, consisting of mapping and sampling and locating drill holes for the 2019 drilling programme, has been completed.

With a management team that has successfully constructed, commissioned and operated mines and low risk, mining-friendly jurisdictions with excellent infrastructure, Phoenix is looking to fulfil its ambitions to become a mid-tier base metal, precious metal and cobalt production company, offering exposure to three high value and high demand metals with compelling demand/supply fundamentals.

More details on the Company, its assets and its objectives can be found on PGM's website at www.pgmining.com

 

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