Grandich Client Excelsior Mining

Excelsior just reached a key milestone in the development of their Gunnison Copper Project as the company released the results for its highly anticipated updated Resource Estimate. An indicated copper oxide resource of 3.21 billion pounds and an additional inferred copper oxide resource of 0.88 billion pounds was reported for the North Star Deposit, part of Excelsior’s Gunnison Project located in Arizona. Prior to this update, the North Star Deposit contained 2.86 billion pounds (404 million tons at 0.35% copper) of inferred resource only, so not only has Excelsior moved their inferred resource to indicated, but they’ve also discovered significantly more oxide copper.

Similar to Alderon, a company that is also partly managed by Mark Morabito’s Exploration Group team and one that has made a habit of constantly exceeding their goals, it appears that the trend of over delivering may be continuing with Excelsior.

Exceptional Resource

Excelsior has come a long way since the start of their $2.5 million 33,792 foot drill program in January. The drill program reported consistent results of solid grades and significant thickness as well as producing nicely fractured core. The ultimate goal was to increase and upgrade the previous oxide resource from the inferred to the indicated category. Management had anticipated upgrading an ambitious 70% of their total oxide resource and they far surpassed it by now having more in the indicated category than they originally had in the inferred.

Not only has Excelsior successfully upgraded their oxide resource, but the company has also significantly increased the global resource which now includes a total indicated resource of 3.52 billion pounds of copper and a total inferred resource (from both North and South Star) of 1.60 billion pounds of copper. Of that global resource, nearly 90% is now made up of oxide copper! This is great news since Excelsior’s plan is to mine Gunnison using in-situ recovery – a more environmental method of mining that uses a low pH solution to dissolve oxide copper so that it can be recovered. For more information on ISR and how it works, go to: http://excelsiormining.com/e/in-siturecovery.php Excelsior definitely found what they were looking for – and plenty of it!

The resource details can be seen below:

NORTH STAR RESOURCE (OXIDE ONLY AT 0.1% CUT-OFF)

NORTH STAR RESOURCE (OXIDE ONLY AT 0.3% CUT-OFF)

NORTH STAR RESOURCE (OXIDE, MIXED & SULPHIDE)

Note: 0.1% cut-off for Oxide component and 0.3% cut-off for Mixed and Sulphide components

More key milestones to come

Excelsior’s plan to mine the Gunnison project using ISR method is one step closer now that they have produced successful results for the oxide component of their deposit. The company will now focus on the current metallurgical and hydrological programs necessary to demonstrate that Gunnison can be mined using ISR. Both of those programs are well underway and I am anticipating news on at least one of them before Labor Day.

Bottomline

As I mentioned in a recent radio interview, this copper play reminds me of Alderon in its early days. With a successful drill program that moved the inferred oxide copper resource to the indicated category and an increase in the overall oxide resource, the company appears well on its way towards production.

By moving much of the resource into the indicated category, we can see a more institutional following develop. The share price has broken above key moving averages on good volume and with anticipation of further good news on the development side of things, I think a target of the old highs and beyond is not unreasonable.

Posted in A Grandich Company All Posts Base Metals Copper Excelsior Mining Exploration Shares Mining Shares by Peter Grandich.