Happy Creek Provides an Update on the Company
Happy Creek Minerals Ltd. wishes to provide a general update on the Company’s status. Happy Creek Minerals was designed from the beginning to minimize investment risk and maximize return potential.
The Company currently has $1.90 million of cash in the bank, and is taking steps to minimize overhead expenditures while continuing to perform low-cost exploration on its projects. The Company’s current cash position is felt to be sufficient for the next year.
The Company’s copper, molybdenum, tungsten, gold and silver properties are all located in British Columbia, Canada, and are adjacent to existing mines or resource based infrastructure, including power and local labour sources. This allows any newly discovered mineral deposit a better chance to be developed to production even with lower commodity prices.
The Company’s mineral properties are owned 100%, with key tenures in good standing for another five to ten years. This means there are no large financial commitments or deadlines forced upon the Company.
The Company has generated several significant new prospects in the past two years.
The Rateria property is located ten to fifteen kilometres southeast of Teck’s Highland Valley copper concentrator, where in their published second quarter report of 2008, they report mining an average grade of 0.31% copper. On the Rateria property, two new copper zones were discovered that remain undefined and open in extent. Drill results from Zone One includes 37.0 metres of 0.579% copper, and 100.0 metres of 0.285% copper, and in Zone “A”, drilling in 2008 intersected potentially economic grades including 103.25 metres of 0.335% copper, and 177.0 metres of 0.366% copper that remain open in extent. Significant higher grade zones occur and include 42.0 metres of 0.865% copper, 0.012% molybdenum, and 4.36 grams per tonne silver. Results for the balance of drilling, performed up to 1.2 kilometres to the southwest of zone “A”, are pending. Recent geological field work in conjunction with drilling and geophysical surveys suggest zone “A” is part of a five kilometre long corridor having potential for several significant copper deposits. In addition, there remain several other large untested geophysical targets, each of which is felt to have excellent potential. The Company has recently acquired a 100% interest in additional property that adjoins Teck on the east, west and south sides, and cover important district scale geology that is similar to the Rateria property.
The Silverboss property is located northeast of 100 Mile House B.C. The property adjoins and largely surrounds the former Boss Mountain molybdenum mine, currently owned by Xstrata PLC. The Boss Mountain mine was one of Canada’s most significant and highest grade molybdenum producers that closed in 1984 due to prolonged molybdenum prices below $4.00/lb, not for a lack of mineralization. Currently molybdenum prices are $31.0/lb. Exploration to date by the Company suggests the molybdenum mineralization at the mine expands outwards, beyond the mine property and well onto the Company’s Silverboss property, with surface rock samples returning up to 0.67% molybdenum. The Company feels the Silverboss property is an important asset, and we will strive to unlock its ultimate value for shareholders.
The 200 square kilometre Fox property is located approximately twenty five kilometres east of the Boss Mountain mine, and in 2007, the first-ever, widely spaced drilling on the property confirmed a large scale tungsten-molybdenum system occurs over 1.5 kilometres by 500 metres in dimension. In context with the property being fifteen kilometres from existing industrial power and has excellent road access, potentially economic grade drill results include 5.0 metres of 0.33% W0(3) (tungsten trioxide), 2.0 metres of 0.74% W0(3), 0.45 metres of 1.13% W0(3), and 0.28 metres of 1.56% W0(3). In addition, drilling intersected a molybdenite bearing layer that returned 1.7 metres of 0.51% molybdenum (Mo), and 150 metres away, 0.50 metres of 0.51% molybdenum that remains open in extent. Boulders on surface have returned up to 5.46% W0(3), and up to 12.778% molybdenum. Four kilometres to the north of this zone the same geological setting with outcrop samples containing up to 7.11% W0(3) over 0.25 metres and large scale and positive tungsten and molybdenum in soil and rock samples occur for an additional two kilometres. On the Fox property, the favorable geology and associated tungsten and molybdenum mineralization has been identified over a distance of ten kilometres, which is very significant on a global scale. The Company feels the Fox property holds excellent potential to generate a tungsten and molybdenum resource comparable to some of the largest in the world, with the additional benefit of being in proximity to infrastructure allowing a lower cost operation.
The Company will continue to perform its low-cost exploration that has been successful in generating new targets and advancing them to returning potentially economic drill results. The decision to further advance these projects by drilling or wait until more favorable market conditions to return is ours to make, and the Company will fully engage the experience of our Board of Directors and advisors to ensure we make the best possible choices for the ultimate benefit of our shareholders going forward.
David Blann, P.Eng. is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the preparation and approval of the technical information disclosed in the news release.
