American West kicks off drill campaign in US copper hunt

Reeling off the back of the tremendous copper intercepts from the Storm Project in Canada, American West Metals has commenced its maiden drilling campaign at the Copper Warrior project in Utah, USA.

The Copper Warrior project is located in an area of robust potential, 15km along strike from Utah’s second largest operating copper mine at Lisbon Valley and adjacent to the historical Big Indian Copper Mine. The Project covers an area of 6.5 square kilometres and is under an option agreement with American West Metals, which is required to complete an expenditure of US$500,000, for a 100 per cent interest in the project. The agreement appears to be well on target to be completed by the end of 2023.

The project is nestled within the Paradox Basin in the south-east of Utah, an area well-known for its world-class deposits of copper, lithium, uranium, vanadium and potash. It is also ideally located close to major infrastructure.

The geophysical induced polarisation (IP) survey completed in 2022 at Copper Warrior uncovered several large geophysical anomalies, believed to be consistent with copper mineralisation. Given the size and distribution of the anomalism, the company believes there is potential for a number of large ‘Lisbon Valley-style’ deposits within their Copper Warrior project area.

One of those very large IP anomalies within the project, known as ‘Anomaly 3’, is over 3.5km in extent and located around the pits of the historical ‘Big Indian’ and ‘Blue Jay’ mines. It has been interpreted to be an extension to the south and east of those copper deposits.

The survey revealed two chargeable layers interpreted as the flat-lying ‘Dakota’ and ‘Lower Burro Canyon’ sandstone units. Notably, both units host copper mineralisation at the nearby Lisbon Valley Mine, with 80 per cent of the reserves and resource of 40.4Mt @ 0.46 per cent copper for 180,000 tonnes of copper, within the Lower Burro Canyon unit. Additionally, all historical resources from the Big Indian Copper Mine were within this unit.

With the host rock sandstone being highly resistive, the chargeable features outlined from the 3D Inversion modelling suggested they may be related to disseminated and vein-style sediment-hosted copper sulphide mineralisation, given the similarities of the signatures to the known nearby copper deposits.

Subsequent geochemical sampling of outcropping rocks within the IP anomalies returned high-grade copper values, including a result of 3.3 per cent copper from ‘Anomaly 1’. At Copper Warrior, the type of mineralisation consists of disseminated chalcocite within the sandstone units and at outcrop - chalcocite, azurite and malachite.

The maiden drilling program includes plans for 10 RC holes in shallow depth extends up to 150m and has been designed to test these anomalous IP signatures and potential wider extensions of mineralisation within the project.

Investors will be all eyes for the assay results within the next 6 weeks and what future programs the company has in store. The interest in what lies ahead for American West has only been heightened by its regal location and logistics as well as the previous bonanza grades reported from its ‘Storm’ Copper Project in the Nunavut area of Canada. With no new mines on the world conveyor belt since 2012, American West Metals is in the league to deliver some long-awaited inventory.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au