New Pacific Reports New Technical Report for Skukum Project
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwire) -- 09/14/12 -- New Pacific Metals Corp. (TSX: NUX) ("New Pacific" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of a Technical Report entitled "Technical Report Skukum Gold-Silver Project Whitehorse Mining District, Yukon Territory, Canada" with effective date of July 16, 2012 and includes new independent resource estimates on the Mt. Skukum (Lake Zone), Skukum Creek and Goddell Gully deposits on the Company's Skukum Gold-Silver Project (the "Project") in southern Yukon Territory, Canada. The Technical Report was undertaken for the Company by Christopher O. Naas, P.Geo. of CME Consultants Inc. ("CME") and Ronald G. Simpson, P.Geo. of GeoSim Services, Inc. ("GeoSim"). Both Mr. Naas and Mr. Simpson are independent of New Pacific pursuant to National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"). Mr. Simpson is the Qualified Person with respect to the resource estimates and Mr. Naas is the Qualified Person with respect to all other aspects of the Technical Report. The Technical Report will be made available for review on the SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at http://www.newpacificmetals.com/ in due course.
CME personnel conducted a property visit and acquired core samples as part of a sample assay verification program prior to, and in support of, the resource estimation. Results of the verification sampling, confirmed the presence of gold and silver mineralization with comparable grades to those reported historically for Mt Skukum (Lake Zone) and for samples collected by New Pacific during the 2011 diamond drilling exploration of the Lake Zone, Skukum Creek and Goddell Gully deposits.
Mineral Resource (1) Estimates
Resource estimates were undertaken on three of the targets within the Project area: Mt. Skukum (Lake Zone); Skukum Creek (comprising the Rainbow Zone, Kuhn Zone, Berg Zone, and Rainbow2 Zone); and Goddell Gully. The resource estimates were carried out using all available exploration data up to, and including, the results of New Pacific's 2011 exploration program.
Each of the deposits were modeled as veins in Leapfrog3d software using a minimum horizontal width of 1.5 metres. The Mt. Skukum (Lake Zone) deposit was modeled as a single continuous vein, the Skukum Creek deposit was modeled as four separate vein zones: Rainbow, Rainbow 2, Berg and Kuhn, and the Goddell Gully deposit was modeled as two sub-parallel vein structures: the Southern Vein and the Northern Vein. Gold and silver values were used in the grade estimates of the Mt. Skukum and Skukum Creek deposits to create a gold-equivalent value. Only gold values were used in the estimation of the Goddell Gully deposit due to incomplete silver assaying on the samples used.
Best fit downhole sample assay composites of gold and silver (for the Mt. Skukum and Skukum Creek deposits) and gold only (for the Goddell Gully deposit) were generated using a nominal 1 metre interval within the zone domains. Samples were capped at established levels prior to compositing, and bulk densities used in the calculations were generated using density measurements made on diamond drill core sampled from the 2011 exploration program.
A rotated block model for each deposit was then created in Gemcom-Surpac Vision© software using a block sizing as follows:
-- Mt. Skukum deposit: 5 x 5 x 3 metres with sub-blocking enabled to 2.5 x
2.5 x 1.5 metres;
-- Skukum Creek deposit: 5 x 1.5 x 5 metres with sub-blocking enabled to
2.5 x 0.75 x 2.5 metres; and,
-- Goddell Gully deposit: 5 x 1.5 x 5 metres with sub-blocking enabled to
2.5 x 0.75 x 2.5 metres.
Gold and silver grades within the vein domain(s) were estimated in three passes using the inverse distance weighting method to the third power (ID3). A single pass nearest neighbour estimate was also carried out for use in model validation. Verification of the generated model was then carried out by visual comparison of blocks and sample grades in plan and section views.
For all targets, a base case cut-off grade of 3.0 g/t gold or gold equivalent was selected and is considered to be generally consistent with the economic cut-off for other mineral deposits of similar characteristics, scale, and location. The current resource estimates of the targets using the 3.0 g/t gold or gold equivalent cut-offs are:
1. Mt. Skukum (Lake Zone): Inferred Mineral Resources of 90,500 tonnes at
9.51 g/t Au equivalent;
2. Skukum Creek: Indicated Mineral Resource of 1,086,800 tonnes at 8.72 g/t
Au equivalent and Inferred Mineral Resource of 586,000 tonnes at 6.83
g/t Au equivalent; and,
3. Goddell Gully: Indicated Mineral Resource of 329,700 tonnes at 8.13 g/t
Au and Inferred Mineral Resource of 483,900 tonnes at 7.13 g/t Au
The mineral resource inventory for the Project, by category, are provided below in Tables 1 and 2:
Table 1: Indicated Mineral Resources
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Cut-off Total Total Total
Grade Au Ag Au EQ contained contained contained
Deposit g/t (2) Tonnes g/t g/t g/t oz Au oz Ag oz Au EQ
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Skukum Creek 3.0 1,086,800 5.54 159 8.72 193,700 5,547,600 304,600
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Goddell Gully 3.0 329,700 8.13 - 8.13 86,210 - 86,210
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Total Indicated 3.0 1,416,500 6.14 - 8.58 279,910 5,547,600 390,810
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Table 2: Inferred Mineral Resources
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Cut-off Total Total Total
Grade Au Ag Au EQ contained contained contained
Deposit g/t (2) Tonnes g/t g/t g/t oz Au oz Ag oz Au EQ
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Mt. Skukum 3.0 90,500 9.25 13 9.51 26,900 37,800 27,656
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Skukum Creek 3.0 586,000 4.74 105 6.83 89,200 1,972,700 128,700
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Goddell Gully 3.0 483,900 7.13 - 7.13 110,867 - 110,867
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Total Inferred 3.0 1,160,400 6.09 - 7.16 226,967 2,010,500 267,223
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Notes:
(1) By prescribed definition, "Mineral Resources" do not have demonstrated
economic viability. An Inferred Mineral Resource is that part of a mineral
resource for which quantity and grade can be estimated on the basis of
geological evidence and limited sampling and reasonably assumed, but not
verified, geological and grade continuity.
(2) Cut-off grade is 3.0 g/t Au equivalent (AuEQ) for Mt Skukum and Skukum
Creek, 3 g/t Au for Goddell Gully. Metal prices were assumed $US1300/oz Au
and US$26/oz Ag. The AuEQ formula is as follows: Au + (Ag (i)0.02) = Au EQ
The Qualified Persons, Christopher O. Naas, P.Geo. and Ronald G. Simpson, P.Geo., have reviewed and approved the contents of this news release.
About New Pacific Metals Corp.
New Pacific Metals Corp. is a Canadian near-term gold and silver production mining company engaged in the exploration and development of gold polymetallic properties in Yukon, Canada. The Company's current project is the Tagish Lake Gold Property in Yukon. With experienced management and sufficient technical and financial resources, the Company is well positioned to build shareholder value through discovery, exploration and resource development.
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Contacts:
New Pacific Metals Corp.
Investor Relations
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