Universal Copper Ltd. announces update on its flagship Poplar Copper Project for 2021. The Company is planning a 6000-metre drill programme this spring to test the depth potential and open western boundary of the historic resource area, and additionally, to drill test some of the highest priority exploration targets on the project.
The Company has initiated a detailed review of historic exploration throughout its district sized 39,000 hectare claim block. After the initial review, the Company identified nine targets with similar characteristics to the Poplar deposit including geophysical signatures, and coincident Long Wave InfraRed anomalies along with anomalous soil geochemistry. Further to this historic work, the Company has recently identified a regional alteration corridor which hosts a number of the exploration targets. These new exploration targets will be followed up on in the coming months.
The Company is in the process of prioritizing these exploration targets for the upcoming drilling campaign.
Further to the overall copper market, a report by Fitch Solutions forecasts global demand will continue to outstrip current production and the market will continue be in deficit over the next few years. Fitch correctly predicted the global refined copper imbalance to indicate a deficit of 247kt by 2018, and to remain under-supplied through to 2021. This has come to pass recently and is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.
Universal CEO Clive Massey commented, “With the potential opportunity to expand the area of discovery, Universal Copper is positioned to take advantage of a strengthening copper market which recently traded close to an all-time high of US$4.26 per pound. Global consumption of refined copper is forecast to steadily increase over the next few years. Driven by the demand of the power industry, copper price increases are indicative of a positive outlook for continuing global economic growth. The Company believes Poplar is an undervalued asset with considerable upside potential and plans to focus its exploration efforts to increase the assets’ value.”
Soil sampling through to limited diamond drilling programs from the mid 1970’s through to 2013 identified nine target areas. A 2009 Airborne EM / magnetic survey further defined these targets. A 2017 Long Wave InfraRed (LWIR) survey supported the airborne geophysics and equally importantly identified an unknown and under explored regional hydrothermal alteration corridor which hosts a number of the known targets as well as newly identified targets.
About Poplar
The 39,280-hectare Poplar Project is road accessible, traversed by a 138 Kva power line, accessible via rail and only 88km to Houston or 400km to a port at Prince Rupert. The property is located in a historic mining area, only 35km from the Huckleberry Mine and 42km from Equity Silver.
The Poplar Deposit has several positive attributes as follows:
- Access is by logging roads 8 km from a major access road.
- Affordable grid power is available within 4 km of the deposit.
- Established mining district, with past and present producers located nearby, including Huckleberry (Imperial), Bell Copper (Glencore) other exploration/development properties nearby Berg (Surge Copper)
- Exploration can be conducted year-round.
Poplar has a Historic Indicated Mineral Resource of 131 million tonnes at 0.31% Cu, 0.009 % Mo, 0.09g/t Au and 2.39 g/t Ag and a Historic Inferred Mineral Resource of 132 million tonnes at 0.27 % Cu, 0.005 % Mo, 0.07 g/t Au and 3.75 g/t Ag.
About Universal Copper
Universal Copper Ltd. is a Canadian-based copper exploration company focused on the acquisition and exploration of copper properties. The Company’s management team has many years of experience in exploration, finance and efficient public company management. Universal’s current focus is on advancing the Poplar Copper Project, one of the most advanced pre-production copper projects in British Columbia with a historic 43-101 resource.
