Ameriwest Critical Metals advances Bornite Copper-Gold Project with historic core review

but the high-grade shell historically is has uh been over you know, 3% equivalent copper grades uh uh based on historic work that was done by Plexus uh back in the 1990s.

All right, welcome back inside our Proactive News room and joining me now is David Watkins. He's the CEO of Amest Critical Medals. And David, it's good to see you. How are you?

Good to see you. I'm doing fine.

Good, good to have you along. excited to learn more about what's going on with the company. I know you had some news out and we'll talk about that in just a second. but maybe give me a bit of background on Amest.

Uh, we're a junior exploration company that focuses on critical metals or core asset is a a copper gold silver project located in Oregon called the Bornite project. Uh it's a high-grade uh uh potential underground uh copper mine, uh you know, subject to uh developing resources and reserves, but it was a project that was owned by Plexus resources back in the 1990s. Plexus was one of the companies that formed Kinross. Uh so they had done uh a pre-feasibility study and done quite a bit of technical work historically, but the project has sat there since the 1990s and uh we're just in the process of uh uh advancing it again. We have all the historic drill core from the project, so we're re-ing it. Uh so we're looking at, you know, the potential to develop a high-grade underground copper mine, you know, subject to completing technical work to to prove uh the the potential resources and reserves that may be there.

Yeah, and you just actually put out some news about this ongoing work that you're doing. This sort of resampling, I guess is the way to describe it. So talk to me a bit about what what you're sort of seeing and and where you're at in this point.

Yeah, so, uh we um were able to get the most of the historic core that had been preserved by various owners of the property historically. So we uh transported that core to Reno and we re-logged and re- uh selected uh uh components of different holes, uh selected intervals. Um so we're seeing, you know, results similar to what the historic results were. We're finding, you know, it looks like the copper maybe a little bit higher, uh the gold and silver, I think in general will be a little bit higher. There's some plusses and minuses there, but we started to put out the results. Uh so we have the uh first three holes of a seven hole re-y program that has been uh released so far and we'll be releasing the other results as they come in. Uh, so the idea there is by re-ing the historic core, we can statistically compare uh this uh current data with historic data. Hopefully we'll be able to verify the historic work that's there and bring it current and be able to move forward with a uh NI 43101 uh technical report for the project.

Yeah, you mentioned you've got uh seven holes that you're you've done is is that enough to get you to that particular point? Will you be doing some more work? And the and I guess there's a lot of modern geology out there available to you as well, right?

Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of the historic work that was done, so companies like Amoco and Cyprus, Plexus uh and Kinross had owned the property historically. Uh so we have uh a lot of that work that we're able to rely on. Uh but uh, you know, the plan is to do this resing and uh we think that should be enough to statistically validate the historic information and do a modern uh uh resource calculation. Uh but we also are looking at uh drilling some additional uh confirmation holes. So we're in the process of of starting the permitting process for that. So we don't expect that the drill program would happen until sometime next summer, uh given the length of time it takes to get the permits in place, but we are moving forward uh with that in parallel to to trying to create an updated technical report.

Yeah, it sounds like this Bornight project's got a a lot of positives to it right now. And and and David, is that what you sort of the message that you're sharing to investors is just about, uh, you know, it's been quite a bit of work done, but still much more that's there to be uncovered.

Yeah, so we have a a Brecha pipe deposit. so it's a cigar-shaped or body that stands vertically. Uh it's about 600 feet in diameter and it had been drilled down to about 1000 feet in depth. And you can think of it as a gas bubble that's come up to surface and the rocks collapsed into it and you've had several mineralizing events that have come through and where the rock was most permeable, you have the highest grade. So there's three different areas. There's a high-grade shell on the outside of it. Uh there's a lower grade interior pipe and their sheet veins with on the outside of of the pipe uh where fractures in the rock have been mineralized. But the high-grade shell historically is has uh been over, you know, 3% equivalent copper grades uh uh based on historic work that was done by Plexus uh back in the 1990s. So, you know, we're trying to confirm that by doing modern work. Uh the lower grade interior pipe would be smaller, but, you know, the today's uh uh metal prices are significantly different than they were in the 1990s. So, you know, we're obviously looking at uh, you know, seeing if we can mined that interior pipe where Plexus focused on just the high-grade shell. We think we can mined the interior pipe, uh but the technical work we're doing, you know, is is looking to uh, you know, prove or disprove that theory.

Okay, so just wrapping everything up. So the key things are, uh obviously you're waiting for some more uh results to come back, but but really the the MRE is probably the big thing that everyone should be waiting for.

Yeah, so, you know, right now we're doing the resing program. We're targeting trying to get a technical report done in the first quarter of next year. We plan on doing some geophysics. So there's potential, these pipes typically occur in clusters. So we've identified the one pipe from historic information, but we want to do geophysics and other work to look for additional pipes that may be there. Uh there's potential to expand this pipe at depth uh and mine the interior pipe uh that wasn't uh the focus of in the 1990s. and there may be a feeder system uh to uh that feeds these bracho pipes that's below the system. So we're going to be looking at, you know, over the next few years at at all those potential targets that are there. Uh so, you know, whether we're able to expand beyond the single pipe we have now, uh time will tell.

All right, we'll wait for that. David, thank you so much. Good update and good to see you as well.

Great, good to see you too.

All right, there's David Watkins, the CEO of Amest Critical Medals.