Strategic Metals Ltd. Announces Commencement Of Exploration And Drilling At Midas Touch And Silver Range Projects
June 15, 2011 -- Strategic Metals Ltd. (TSX-V: SMD) ("Strategic") is pleased to announce that surface exploration and diamond drilling have started at its Midas Touch and Silver Range projects in Yukon Territory.
Midas Touch Project
At the 100% owned Midas Touch project located in central Yukon, an exploration program of diamond drilling, surface prospecting and geochemical sampling has commenced. With minimum expenditures of $3 million, this program will advance priority targets for Carlin-style gold mineralization in the vicinity of ATAC Resources Ltd.'s Rackla Gold Project and new Osiris discovery. Drilling is now underway at the Crag property, which hosts the only known occurrence of orpiment and realgar in the trend, other than the Osiris discovery located 40 km to the east. Previous drilling at the Trent Zone of the Crag property in 1977 by McIntyre Mines Limited intersected realgar and orpiment in all four drill holes, with long intervals (up to 92.4 m) in two holes and shorter intervals that bottomed in mineralization in the other holes. Historical drilling at the Crag property targeted lead-zinc mineralization. The realgar and orpiment bearing rocks were not analyzed for gold. Realgar and orpiment often occur with gold in significant mines within the Carlin Trend of Nevada.
Diamond drilling will also be completed at the Rod claim group, where grid soil sampling in 2010 outlined a 1500 by 500 m area of anomalous gold results accompanied by very high silver, antimony, arsenic, mercury and lead values (see Strategic news release dated Dec. 9, 2010). This area lies in the immediate footwall of a regional thrust fault, a key structural feature that extends through a number of claims belonging to Strategic and ATAC. The Rod Anomaly is underlain by a shale unit which regionally caps the carbonate-rich section that hosts ATAC's gold discoveries. The nature of the geochemical response coupled with silver-bearing veins and fractures within the shales suggest that the Rod Anomaly may represent leakage of fluids from a gold-rich system in the underlying carbonate strata.
Concurrent with the drilling of the Crag and Rod properties, Strategic will perform surface geological and geochemical exploration on other properties within the 700 square kilometre Midas Touch project, in order to rapidly advance new discoveries to the drill stage.
Silver Range Project
A comprehensive exploration and drilling program has commenced at the Silver Range project in the Faro District of south-central Yukon. With up to 25,000 m of drilling and $14 million in expenditures, this program will follow-up encouraging 2010 results from the Keg Zone and test five additional large-scale target areas for bulk tonnage silver-zinc-lead-copper mineralization. At the Keg Zone, widely-spaced 2010 drilling intersected broad intervals of porphyry-style, disseminated and stockwork mineralization in all four holes. This drilling partially tested a 550 m strike length of a 4 kilometre long by several hundred metre wide geochemical and geophysical anomaly.
Systematic geological mapping, prospecting, and geochemical surveys will also be undertaken over the entire 700 square kilometre project to identify new target areas. During the 1970's and 1980's, the Faro District was the site of the largest open-pit lead-zinc-silver mining operation in Canada, and the area still has excellent but now under-utilized infrastructure.
The Silver Range project is the subject of a Plan of Arrangement that will be voted on at a special general meeting of Strategic shareholders scheduled for July 15, 2011 (see Strategic news release dated June 13, 2011). If the Plan of Arrangement is approved, Strategic shareholders will receive shares and tradeable warrants of a spin-out company, Silver Range Resources Ltd., which will hold the Silver Range and Mint projects. Full details of the spin-out transaction are contained within a management information circular dated June 2, 2011 that is being mailed to Strategic shareholder and can be reviewed at www.sedar.com. No assay results from the Silver Range project will be released, nor received by Strategic or Silver Range Resources Ltd., until after the Plan of Arrangement has been completed.
About Strategic Metals Ltd.
Strategic is a pre-eminent explorer and claimowner in the Yukon, with 61 properties under option to other companies, 15 properties subject to sales or joint venture agreements, and more than 79 wholly-owned properties. Strategic also holds royalty interests in 16 projects, including a net smelter return royalty on part of the Wolverine Deposit which is scheduled to commence production in 2011. Strategic currently has approximately $27 million in cash and owns marketable shares of other resource companies with a total value exceeding $86 million. Strategic recently completed a $17 million private placement with and transferred its highly-prospective Silver Range and Mint projects into Silver Range Resources Ltd. for Silver Range shares and warrants. The majority of these shares and warrants will be transferred to Strategic shareholders of record on a pro-rata basis as part of a proposed plan of arrangement, to be voted on at a special meeting of Strategic shareholders expected to be convened in May, 2011. Advance notice of the effective record date will be provided in due course.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
"W. Douglas Eaton"
President and Chief Executive Officer
For further information concerning Strategic or its various exploration projects please visit our website at www.strategicmetalsltd.com or contact:
Corporate Information
Strategic Metals Ltd.
W. Douglas Eaton
President and C.E.O.
Tel: (604) 688-2568
Strategic Metals Ltd.
Bruce A. Youngman
Chairman
Tel: (604) 687-2522
Investor Inquiries
Richard Drechsler
Corporate Communications
Tel: (604) 687-2522
NA Toll-Free: (888) 688-2522
rdrechsler@strategicmetalsltd.com
http://www.strategicmetalsltd.com