North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Western Copper and Gold Corp. June 6 announced the start of its 2022 exploration and drill program at the Casino copper-gold-silver-molybdenum project in Canada's Yukon.

Located about 300 kilometers (186 miles) northwest of Whitehorse, this world-class project that Western Copper and Gold has been advancing since acquiring the property in 2008 is found within the traditional territory of the Selkirk First Nation.

Historically, two prefeasibility studies and a feasibility study on developing a mine at Casino have been published. Western Copper and Gold, however, has substantially expanded the deposit and last year published a preliminary economic assessment outlining an economically robust mine capable of producing an average of 178 million pounds of copper, 231,000 ounces of gold, 1.36 million oz of silver, and 16.6 million lb of molybdenum per year over an initial 25-year mine life.

This PEA is based on 2.03 billion metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.14% (6.58 billion pounds) copper, 0.17 grams per metric ton (12.1 million ounces) gold, 1.4 g/t (100.5 million oz) silver, and 0.016% (731 million lb) molybdenum; plus 1,46 billion metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.1% (3.28 million lbs) copper, 0.14 g/t (6.6 million oz) gold, 1.2 g/t (55.2 million oz) silver, and 0.01% (322.8 million lb) molybdenum.

The key exploration target for this year will be a deep magnetotelluric low-resistivity anomaly initially identified by a Titan induced polarization-magnetotelluric geophysical survey completed in 2009 and better defined by data reprocessing in 2018. This northeast-trending anomaly is roughly 1,300 meters long and 500 meters wide and is expected to be encountered at approximately 800 meters in depth.

Furthermore, an equally extensive induced polarization anomaly lies above and northwest of the magnetotelluric anomaly. Historical drill holes that penetrated this anomaly contained low-grade copper and gold values. Contingent upon the results of the first deep hole to test this anomaly, the company plans to drill a second roughly 175 meters southwest.

The program will also include roughly 1,500 meters of geotechnical and hydrological drilling to test the ground conditions at the sites of the proposed tailings management, heap leaching, and milling facilities, as well as the new airstrip.

Additionally, several test pits are planned for the heap-leach area.

"We are excited to launch our 2022 exploration and drill program," said Paul West-Sells, president and CEO of Western Copper and Gold. "The deep MT anomaly is a target we've wanted to drill for a number of years, and the geotechnical program will be key to the development of our ESE statement, on track for submission next year."

The program was developed in collaboration with Rio Tinto as outlined in the strategic investment agreement between the companies in May last year.