Canada-based Electra Battery Materials Corporation announced an updated mineral resource estimate (2023 MRE) for its Iron Creek Cobalt-Copper Project located in the Idaho Cobalt Belt, a 34-mile-long formation containing some of the largest primary cobalt deposits in North America, that paves the way for additional exploration activities and development of a preliminary economic assessment.
2023 resource showing the indicated and inferred resource domains as well as blocks with NSR values that are not included in the resource due to insufficient drilling to establish connectivity and DSO outlines.
Highlights of the MRE:
- Indicated resource of 4.4 million tonnes grading at 0.19% cobalt for 18.4 million pounds cobalt and grading at 0.73% copper for 71.5 million pounds of copper.
- Inferred resource of 1.2 million tonnes grading at 0.08% cobalt for 2.1 million pounds of cobalt and grading at 1.34% copper for 36.5 million pounds of copper.
- As a result of infill and step-out drilling completed to date, Electra has upgraded 54% of the Inferred Resource category of the 2019 MRE to the Indicated category in 2023.
- The mineral resource area of the Iron Creek Project covers an area of 1,652 meter strike length at a 780 meter width and extending to a height of 852 meters.
- Within the Iron Creek project boundary there are seven document occurrences of metallic mineralization exposed at surface or encountered by drilling. Iron Creek is main mineralized body and Ruby is the second most important occurrence.
- The 2023 MRE was prepared for a potential underground scenario with a US$87.00 net smelter return (NSR) cut-off grade.
- Additional drilling is recommended to connect isolated intercepts on the east and at depth with the resource area, and advance the Ruby target to increase the inferred mineral resource.
The Iron Creek Project consists of mining patents and exploration claims over an area of 3,300 hectares covering the strike extent of strata hosting mineralization. Historic underground development at Iron Creek includes 600 meters of drifting from three adits.
A road connects the property to a state highway and nearby towns, Challis and Salmon. Iron Creek is one of several cobalt-copper resources and prospects within the Idaho Cobalt Belt, a prospective mineralized system that contains the largest primary resources of cobalt in the United States, according to the US Geological Survey.