EuroPacific Announces Hiring of Drill Contractors for Miguel Vacas Copper Project, Portugal

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 28, 2024 / Europacific Metals Inc (TSXV:EUP)(OTCQB:AUCCF) (the "Company" or "Europacific") is pleased to announce that it has awarded a drilling contract to SPI, Sondeos Y Perforaciones Industriales del Bierzo, SA, one of the most active drilling companies in Spain and Portugal with a vast working experience. SPI possesses international environmental and quality management certifications, respectively ISO1 4001 and ISO 9001. The Company is planning for the immediate commencement of drilling and is preparing the drill pad locations.

"We're making preparations at the drill site for the immediate commencement of drill operations at the Miguel Vacas Copper project, over the last few months we have completed a reinterpretation and geological modelling along with further sampling. This has enabled us to generate a very compelling drill target model at Miguel Vacas. The drill program will focus on and confirm the extensions and the quality of the oxidized blanket for an open pit heap leaching operation. If successful, this will allow us to come up and confirm an initial resource estimation and enable a bulk sample operation in the short term while the sulfide parts of the system are assessed by deeper drilling at a later stage. We have a very experienced technical team and are looking forward to boots on the ground next week." stated Karim Rayani, Chief Executive Officer.

The campaign will be initially focused on Miguel Vacas Copper advanced copper project which is located approximately 180 km east by road from Lisbon and approximately 70 km east from Évora, the Alentejo region capital.

Miguel Vacas open pit copper deposit which produced 1.9 million lbs of copper from the oxide zone of a shear zone in schists at least 2,000 meters along strike and 10 to 20 meters in width. Drilling priority will be focused in this phase on the evaluation of the shallow (<80m) open pittable section of the deposit which consists mainly of oxidised copper ore amenable to heap leaching. Historical near surface drilling (60 to 71.63m) intercepted 1.79 % Cu over 10.54m including 2.29% Cu over 7.30 m. An in-house resource estimation based on 20 historical holes carried out by Rio Narcea came up with a total of 1.2 Mt @ 1.23% Cu for the supergene blanket and 4.4 Mt @ 1.24% Cu for the sulphide ore, respectively from 0 to 80m and >80m to 250m over a drilled strike length of approximately 1.1km. The mineralized system extends on at least 2 km along l strike and is open at depth.

These drilling data has been compiled from reports from a Portuguese private company, EMIL-Empresa de Mineração S.A. in the seventies of the previous century and Colt Resources, a Canadian junior, during the period 2014-2015. Highlights of these results are depicted in the table below:

Foto: Accesswire

The plan includes a total of 11 shallow holes to confirm previous results and detail the morphology of the oxidized blanket in order to outline an initial resource estimation. A deep undercut hole is also planned to confirm the deeper sulphide zone for further follow-up. All relevant authorizations from the public authorities and landowners have all been cleared and drilling platforms have been concluded. Work is scheduled to start effectively in the first week of April 2024.