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Benchmark Metals encouraged by early drill results from Cliff Creek zone at Lawyers project, which underscore mining potential

Published: 07:30 02 Sep 2020 EDT

Benchmark Metals Inc. -
Highlight assays from the one hole included 31 metres (m) from 20m depth to 51m depth of 2.98 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 72.77 g/t silver

Benchmark Metals Inc (CVE:BNCH) (OTCQB:CYRTF) has unveiled encouraging early drill assays from the Cliff Creek zone of its flagship Lawyers gold and silver project in British Columbia, which it said show good potential for robust mine economics.

One hole showed almost continuous mineralization from near-surface to higher-grades at depth, which should favorably impact the future mineral resource and pit-shell design, the firm added.

Benchmark has so far completed nearly 40,000 metres from 195 holes as part of an up to 100,000-metre program planned for this year.

READ: Benchmark Metals makes new discovery at Marmot zone as it drills new targets at Lawyers gold and silver project in Canada

"Seeing these early results from Cliff Creek highlights our belief in the underexplored nature of the area where multiple, discrete zones occur within the same hole," John Williamson, CEO of Benchmark said in a statement.

"The high-grade near-surface mineralization helps considerably with the economic potential during the first few years of a potential mining scenario. Additionally, the other shallower holes in the east zone have significant potential to add more gold-silver mineralization and ounces in areas of previously unrecognized mineralization that also remains open at depth and will be tested in the coming week," he added.

The company boss noted that drilling continued to progress "exceptionally well" at Cliff's Creek, AGB, and the Dukes Ridge-Phoenix zone at the project.

Highlight assays from the one hole included 31 metres (m) from 20m depth to 51m depth of 2.98 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 72.77 g/t silver.  Also encountered was 12.85m of 2.20 g/t gold and 67.23 g/t silver, near the bottom of the hole, in an intercept from a depth of 140.6m to 153.45m depth.

The Cliff Creek Zone is Benchmark's largest area of interest at the site. Here, the company has already defined a bulk-tonnage target in the range of 1.68 to 1.92 million ounces (Moz) of gold equivalent at an average grade ranging from 1.71-1.73 g/t gold equivalent. The zone extends over 1.2 kilometres and is open in all directions.

The zone is also notably providing a consistent ratio of around 40:1 silver to gold, the firm said.

Further drilling this year is set to include deeper holes still an effort to define deeper mineralization extending open-pit optimizations at depth and/or future underground extraction scenarios, added the company.

Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com

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