American Pacific Mining Corp. has announced the results of its latest drilling project in Southeast Alaska. The company has drilled seven out of sixteen planned holes at its Palmer Copper-Zinc VMS Project.

The drilling program is part of a planned CAD $17.5 million (USD $12.8 million) exploration and development budget funded by a joint venture partnership between Dowa Metals & Mining Alaska Ltd. and American Pacific. The initial results from the first two holes drilled in the South Wall Zone 1 and RW Zone of the Palmer Deposit have been released.

In total, 19 holes were drilled in 2024, covering 6,035.9 meters. Three of these holes were drilled to fill gaps in previous drilling data. The focus of the drilling program was to expand the known area of high-grade copper and zinc mineralization in the South Wall Zone 1 and Zone 2-3. Additionally, three exploratory holes were drilled to investigate a potential extension of the South Wall mineralization, known as the North Wall Target.

The three holes resulted:

1. Hole CMR24-194: Found a 16.4-meter section with significant copper, zinc, lead, gold, and silver. A 10.4-meter portion of this section had even higher grades of these metals.

2. Hole CMR24-193: Found a 3.5-meter section with copper, zinc, lead, gold, and silver.

3. Hole CMR24-192: Found a 2.9-meter section with high-grade copper and zinc, and a 9.8-meter section with lower-grade copper.

“This year’s drill program was successful in following up on last year’s high-grade results, while better defining the known mineralization on the property, ahead of the updated mineral resource estimate and technical report budgeted to begin this year,” commented Peter Mercer, VP Advanced Projects for American Pacific.

“The Palmer Project is located within a prolific mineral belt in Southeast Alaska. This mineral terrane extends hundreds of kilometres north and south of Palmer, hosting several historic and current mining operations. The Palmer and AG deposits are just two of the mineralized areas defined and drill tested to date, on the property that has district-scale potential,” Mercer added.  

About the Palmer Copper-Zinc VMS Project

The Palmer VMS Project is an advanced-stage copper-zinc-gold-silver exploration project located in Southeast Alaska with road access and situated only 60 kilometers from the deep-sea port at Haines, Alaska. The Palmer Deposit and AG Zone Deposit are two resources that meet the standards set by NI 43-101. Together, they contain a total of 4.68 million tonnes of ore with a zinc equivalent grade of 10.2% in the indicated category and 9.59 million tonnes with a zinc equivalent grade of 8.9% in the inferred category. A Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) completed in June 2019 outlined a low capex, low operating cost, high margin underground mining operation with attractive environmental attributes.