New Gold Inc has officially released the latest update for its ongoing exploration programs at the 100%-owned New Afton and Rainy River mines.
According to certain reports, if we talk about New Afton, new underground drilling has effectively confirmed the width and continuity of previously reported mineralization at K-Zone, while simultaneously spotting copper-gold porphyry mineralization from the roots of the zone.
As a a result, the K-Zone mineralized system now reaches approximately 600 metres in strike length and 900 metres in vertical extent. This comes drill holes from surface intersected new mineralization 550 metres to the east of the current footprint, thus proposing a real possible for further growth.
Turning our attention towards Rainy River, it saw surface drilling extending the NW Trend mineralization. On the flipside, underground drilling has also extended underground mining zones that continue to remain open at depth. Not just that, infill drilling also continues to progress the conversion of near-surface and underground Inferred Mineral Resources, something which is being extensively tipped to have a positive impact on year-end Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource estimates.
“The remarkable exploration success at New Afton exemplifies the high quality of this asset and demonstrates the upside potential not yet captured in the reserve and resource statement,” said Patrick Godin, President and CEO of New Gold. “Rainy River, having only recently restarted exploration campaigns of significant scale, is already contributing to offsetting mining depletion through incremental extensions of existing mining zones.
Talk about the whole thing on a slightly deeper level, we begin from how, what we briefly touched upon, recent exploration drilling has significantly expanded the K-Zone mineralized system both eastward and at depth with the discovery of new porphyry mineralization.
In case you weren’t aware, K-Zone Footwall spans multiple zones of chalcopyrite mineralization hosted in potassic-altered volcanic rocks. Hence, the arrival of new mineralization should double the size of a previously-reported K-Zone mineralized system, bolstering its horizontal thickness to a total of 180 metres.
On top of that, exploration drilling also intersected new copper-gold porphyry mineralization in previously unexplored areas to the east of K-Zone. Borehole AF24-596E. The intersected findings include 0.75% copper mineralization and 0.59 g/t gold (1.17% CuEq) over 55 metres core length in volcanic rocks located 550 metres to the east of the current K-Zone footprint.
Now, having bolstered the K-Zone mineralized envelope, New Gold is actively looking to increase New Afton’s 2025 exploration budget by $5 million to $22 million, covering up to 63,000 metres of drilling. This the company will do with an objective of reporting a maiden mineral resource for K-Zone in the 2025 year-end Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource estimates.
In fact, assuming tne site’s development work continues, it will go onto leverage existing C-Zone infrastructure, including the thickened-and-amended tailings plant, crusher and conveyor system, and Integrated Operations Centre.
As for Rainy River’s exploration strategy, it remains focused on sustaining its recent success in mineral reserve replacement. The 2025 program, you see, really goes the distance to emphasize infill drilling and convert inferred mineral resources to Indicated mineral resources.
This program will also facilitate exploration drilling to expand both open pit and underground ore zones, all for purpose of generating new inferred resources. Moving forward, multiple engineering studies will look to support the conversion of Measured and Indicated Resources into Mineral Reserves.
The development in question delivers a rather interesting follow-up to Rainy River completing approximately 45,000 metres of its planned 58,000-metre 2025 exploration program, marking its most extensive drilling campaign since 2017.
For the near-term, positive results from the 2025 NW Trend exploration campaign, both within and beyond the 2024 resource pit shell, are anticipated to upgrade the classification to Indicated Mineral Resources, and at the same time, expand the zone’s footprint.
“We plan to increase this year’s consolidated exploration budget by $6 million, mostly for an additional 15,000 metres of exploration drilling at K-Zone which will enable us to define the expanded envelope ahead of a maiden K-Zone mineral resource, which is expected to be announced with our year-end Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource estimate update early in 2026. The continued exploration success supports the Company’s strategic objectives to extend the mine lives of our two operations,” said Godin.
