Faraday Copper (TSX:FDY) is aiming to release an updated resource for its flagship Copper Creek Project in Arizona in the first half of 2025.
The Canadian explorer continues to roll out the results of phase-three drilling, which could support an increase in the open pit resources.
The 3km-long Copper Creek Project currently hosts combined open pit and underground measured and indicated resources totalling 421.9 million tonnes @ 0.45% for 4.2 billion pounds of contained copper.
The measured and indicated open pit resource currently sits at around 127.1 million tonnes @ 0.40% copper for 1.1 billion pounds of copper.
The most recent results released in the second quarter of 2024 returned intersected 29.08 @ 0.62% copper from 145.69m, from within a broader 190.25m @ 0.23% copper from just 15m.
These results came from the Prada breccia in the American Eagle area, which also returned 20.07m @ 1.20% copper from within a broader intersection of 100.29m @ 0.42% copper.
The focus of the current drilling campaign is to expand the resource through improved delineation of high-grade mineralised zones and reconnaissance drilling on new targets.
Faraday says with extensive historical exploration, over 200,000m of drilling and modest past production, “significant exploration upside remains”.
“There are several hundred known breccia occurrences mapped at surface, of which less than 20% have been drill tested and only 17 are included in the mineral resource estimate,” the company says in its second-quarter 2024 report.
Phase three drilling has also confirmed the potential for gold to occur in economic concentrations in certain phases of the mineralisation. Gold is not currently included in the resource estimate.
Faraday has now largely completed a sampling program to gather sufficient data for potential to include gold in future resource updates.
The company has so far received the results from the Childs Aldwinkle and Copper Prince breccias, as well as the Keel underground zone.
Results from the Keel Zone included 0.28 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and confirmed 1.34% copper over 103.64m.
The June quarter also saw the continuation of baseline environmental data collection, stakeholder mapping, and generative exploration targeting at the Copper Creek Project.
This is aimed at providing a pipeline of future targets through ongoing geological mapping and recently reprocessed and newly acquired geophysical data.
Faraday, which has a market capitalisation of C$170.4 million ($188.9 million), held C$48.3 million worth of cash and assets at the end of the second quarter.
The company raised C$23 million during the quarter following the completion of a bought deal financing.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Faraday Copper
