Phoenix Copper. Regulatory News (PXC)

Phoenix Copper Limited / Ticker: PXC / Sector: Mining

21 October 2019

Phoenix Copper Limited (the "Company" or "Phoenix")

Nigel Maund Report highlights the polymetallic sulphide potential at the Red Star and White Knob Mine Group and the potential of the greater "Empire Mineralised System"

Phoenix Copper Limited (AIM: PXC, OTCQX: PGMLF), the AIM quoted North American focused base and precious metals exploration and development company, is pleased to announce the publication of a further report by Nigel Maund, Consultant Economic Geologist to Phoenix, on the geology and mineral potential of the Red Star and White Knob Mine Group along strike to the north of the Company's Empire Mine copper oxide deposit in Idaho USA.

This report supplements Maund's Empire Mine report published in April 2019 and ties the geology and mineralisation of the Empire deposit to the mineralisation identified along a 2.5 km trend north through the Red Star resource and into the White Knob Mine Group all as part of a larger molybdenum-tungsten porphyry known as the "Empire Mineralised System".

The report can be found on the Company's website at https://phoenixcopperlimited.com/reports.

The Company has also updated its corporate presentation which can be found on its website at: https://phoenixcopperlimited.com/pgm-media-and-presentations

The key findings of the report are as follows:

·; High-grade silver, lead, and zinc (plus copper and gold) mineralisation extends on a northward strike from the main Empire copper deposit at least 2.5 km and is focused on a series of mineralised shears/faults, along which occur the Red Star resource area, as well as the previously mined White Knob, Blue Bird, and Horseshoe deposits. Another 30 unnamed historic underground mines and prospects also occur along the same trend.

·; The silver, lead, zinc, copper and gold grades encountered in the Company's 2018 drilling programme at Red Star are consistent with the grades of the same metals found in channel samples taken from the ribs of underground workings in the White Knob, Blue Bird, Horseshoe mines 1 km to the north. 

·; The average production grades from the White Knob Mine were 204 g/t silver, 19% lead, 6.5% zinc and 0.73% copper. By comparison, the Red Star drilling results from 2018 drill hole KX18-55 and KX18-57, showed 9.15m of 361 g/t silver, 9.9% lead and 0.8% zinc, and 15.24m of 160 g/t silver, 13.3% lead and 1.4% zinc, respectively.

·; Mined widths of 2m to 16m in the historic White Knob, Blue Bird, Horseshoe mines are similar to the mineralised drill hole intercept widths encountered in the 2018 drilling programme, with similar mineralogy.

·; Maund concludes that the potential mineralised system, including the Empire, Red Star, and the White Knob Group, "has been less than 1% exploited and explored" and "this northern part of the system remains unexplored with indications of substantial ore potential".

·; Maund also concludes that the mineralisation exhibited in the Red Star and White Knob Group trend is consistent with a molybdenum-tungsten porphyry system for which he attributed the Empire copper deposit to the south.

 Dennis Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"It was a great pleasure to receive Nigel Maund's report on Red Star, a discovery that we first reported to shareholders in early 2019. He confirms the continuity of the mineralisation northwards from the Empire Mine through Red Star to the old mines of the White Knob Group in the Horseshoe Block. 

"The Red Star discovery is in primary high-grade silver/lead sulphide mineralisation. After only three holes drilled we were able to generate a maiden NI 43-101 compliant resource of some 103,500 tonnes, containing over half a million ounces of silver. Our current view is that Red Star may develop into a high-grade underground silver-lead mine with a modest level of capex.

"This is a strategically important development for the Company as it enables us to move away from being a single asset company with all the inherent risks that such companies face. As a junior company we are focused on developing value by discovery and development and we have known for a long time that we have an abundance of exploration opportunities at the Empire Mine. We were highly encouraged by the recent drilling at Red Star, which returned 15.24m of 160 g/t silver, 13.3% lead and 1.4% zinc, to evaluate the possibility of developing this project which would enable us to broaden our risk by adding both silver and lead into the commodity mix in addition to the copper.

"It is our intention to fast track the exploration of Red Star by drilling and sampling along the trend in order to delineate additional economic resources and reach a development decision by the end of H2 2020, whilst also continuing our Bankable Feasibility Study programme for the Empire Mine open pit copper oxide project.

"Moreover, the Red Star project highlights the polymetallic nature of the Empire Mine district which we have only begun to explore beyond the initial open pit oxides. Red Star is part of the sulphide mineralisation, which Nigel considers to be less than 1% explored. Drilling into Red Star therefore commences the evaluation of what we believe will develop into a world class sulphide deposit.

"Finally, we are now undertaking some early exploration work at our Navarre Creek discovery, a Carlin-style gold zone west of the open pit oxide project."

Nigel Maund - Curriculum Vitae

Mr Maund is well versed in the geology and ore deposits at the Company's Empire Mine area properties, having previously reported on it in 2015 and in 2019. He visited Mackay in March 2019 to analyse the Empire Mine and ore system in more detail, including a review of the drill core and drill chips from the Company's 2017 and 2018 drilling campaigns, as well as earlier drilling programmes, and followed up his April 2019 report with a further site visit in September 2019 to specifically report on the Red Star and Navarre Creek discoveries. Maund's reports on the Empire deposit and the Red Star discovery and White Knob Mine Group can be found on the Company's website at https://phoenixcopperlimited.com/reports.

Nigel Maund BSc (Hons) Lond., MSc, DIC, MBA, F.Aus.IMM, F.AIG, F.SEG, FGS, MMSA has 45 years industry experience as a Professional Economic Geologist, whose consulting work has covered a broad range of metalliferous mineral deposits globally. Amongst his achievements, as Senior Geologist on the Olympic Dam project in Australia for BP Minerals, he played a key role in the understanding of the geology and mineralisation of the world class copper/gold/uranium/ project. He has worked with RTZ Metals, Cliffs Natural Resources and many junior sector exploration and mining companies in both the discovery and evaluation phases of significant projects, including the discovery of the Geita gold project in Tanzania now owned and operated by AngloGold Ashanti, and the evaluation and exploration of metalliferous projects in France with BRGM. Much of his work has been on the detailed early-stage evaluation of gold, base metal and tin & tungsten skarns and in porphyry copper & molybdenum deposits in France, Spain, Romania, the Philippines, Indonesia, Chile, Peru, Argentina, the USA and Australia. Many of these projects have close geological similarities to the Company's Empire Mine Ore system.

Under the guidelines established by the Australian Institution of Mining & Metallurgy and Australasian Institution of Geoscientists, he qualifies as a "Competent Person".  He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy, the American Society of Economic Geologists and the Geological Society of London, as well as being a Member of the American Society of Mineralogists. He also owns 51, 538 shares in Phoenix, representing 0.13% of the Company.

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.

Contacts

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

Notes

Phoenix Copper Limited is a North American focused, base and precious metal explorer and developer, which is fast-tracking the historically-producing Empire Mine in Idaho, USA, back into production, and exploring for cobalt in Idaho.

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 320 drill holes an oxide resource was completed in late 2017. A NI 43-101 compliant PEA (preliminary economic assessment) for an open pit heap leach solvent extraction and electrowinning ("SX-EW") mine was completed in April 2018. In June 2018 a drilling campaign consisting of 8,600 metres in 93 holes was started and completed in late 2018. This programme was designed to upgrade and increase the oxide resources, provide samples for ongoing metallurgical test work, geotechnical and hydrological studies and condemnation drilling for the heap leach pad site, waste dump and plant site. An updated NI 43-101 compliant resource was completed in early May 2019 which resulted in an increase from the PEA resources of 37% contained copper and 108% contained zinc. This resource has been used for this economic analysis and will now be used as the basis for the Bankable Feasibility Study ("BFS") scheduled for completion in 2020.

At Empire, it is estimated that less than 1% 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 resources relate to the oxide resource only, with the exception of the Red Star discovery "Inferred" resource, which remains open along strike and does not include the deeper, higher grade sulphides. In addition, Phoenix has increased the claim area from 818 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 by a total strike length of approximately 2,500 metres towards another brownfield mine, the Horseshoe Mine, which is now within the property boundary.

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 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 PXC's website at www.phoenixcopperlimited.com.