Following up on a positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) completed last year, ZincX Resources has released more high-grade drill results from exploration at its Cardiac Creek zinc-lead-silver project in northwestern B.C.
The company, which until last May was known as Canada Zinc Metals, completed 2,350 metres of large-diameter diamond drilling in four holes in August.
Hole 150 returned 38.2 metres (true width) averaging 6.14% zinc, 1.15% lead and 10.9 g/t silver starting at 480 metres depth. The longer interval included a 10.9-metre intercept of 10.85% zinc, 2.23% lead and 17 g/t silver.
ZincX reports that all four holes tested the Cardiac Creek Zone with excellent recovery of thick intervals of sphalerite-galena-barite mineralization, including highly mottled textures which generally indicate greater than average zinc grades. Its 2019 exploration program is focused on the central high-grade core of the deposit targeting the initial five years of future mine production identified in the PEA.
Last year, ZincX released a PEA for Cardiac Creek that outlined a 4,000 t/d underground mine with an 18-year mine life with a C$302.3 million initial capital cost. The study projected an after-tax net present value of C$401 million (at a 7% discount rate) and an after tax internal rate of return of 27%.
Cardiac Creek is part of ZincX’s flagship Akie project, located 260 km northwest of Mackenzie, B.C., in the Kechika Trough.
The company also announced that additional sampling of a hole drilled at the Sitka zone, a massive barite zinc-lead showing located 4 km east of Cardiac Creek, intersected broader mineralization that. ZincX had previously reported shorter, shallower mineralized intervals from the hole (A-18-149), but additional sampling has outlined a broad, 55.5 metre open-ended downhole interval starting at 193 metres depth that graded 6.7 g/t silver.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)