Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – Tuesday, January 17, 2017 – Canada Zinc Metals Corp. (“Canada Zinc Metals” or “the Company”, TSX Venture Exchange: CZX) is pleased to announce it will showcase the Akie and Kechika Regional projects at the upcoming Roundup 2017 Mineral Exploration Conference in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
The Roundup 2017 Mineral Exploration Conference (http://roundup.amebc.ca/) is being held January 23rd to January 26th at the Vancouver Convention Center. The annual conference is the showcase event for the Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) and brings together a mixture of provincial, national and international mineral explorers, mining companies, financiers, investors and geoscientists from across a broad spectrum of the mining industry.
The Company will be exhibiting at Booth #1423 in the Exhibit Hall on Wednesday January 25th (9am to 4pm) and Thursday January 26th (9am to 2:30pm) and cordially invites its shareholders, investors and interested participants to visit with management and staff over the 2-day period. The Company will be updating visitors on its recent activities, handing out information brochures as well as displaying some of the high-grade drill core obtained from recent drilling at the Company’s flagship Akie property.
More than 6,000 delegates are expected at Roundup 2017 making it one of the most attractive and well attended exploration and technical conferences in the world. Over 300 companies are currently registered as exhibitors; representing a cross between mining, financing, exploration and service companies. The annual convention has grown significantly since inception in 1984. The featured keynote speaker is David Garofalo, President and Chief Executive Officer of Goldcorp. This year’s Patron Sponsor is Teck Resources, a Canada Zinc Metals shareholder and optionee (along with its JV Partner, Korea Zinc) of the Company’s Pie Option Properties.
The Kechika Regional Project
The Company is the 100% owner of eleven, large, contiguous property blocks that comprise the Akie and Kechika Regional projects. The Company’s flagship Akie Project is host to the Cardiac Creek deposit. The Kechika Regional Project includes the Pie, Yuen, Cirque East and Mt. Alcock properties extending northwest from the Akie property for approximately 140 kilometres along the strike of the highly prospective Gunsteel Formation shale; the main host rock for known SEDEX zinc-lead-silver deposits in the Kechika Trough of northeastern British Columbia. These projects are located approximately 260 kilometres north northwest of the town of Mackenzie, British Columbia, Canada. The generative portfolio of Kechika Regional properties offer shareholders and interested exploration companies high-potential opportunities for new discoveries in the Kechika Trough.
Pie Option Agreement
The Pie, Yuen and Cirque East properties are the subject of an option agreement with Teck Resources Ltd. (“Teck” TSX: TCK.B) and its JV partner, Korea Zinc Co., Ltd. ("Korea Zinc" KRX:KorZinc 010130). The option agreement would see Teck and Korea Zinc spend up to $8.5 million to acquire up to 70% interest in the Pie, Yuen and Cirque East properties.
Teck has spent over $1.3 million in exploration expenditures in two field seasons on the Pie Option Properties using an integrated approach to exploration to decrease risk and maximize the potential for discovery. In accordance with the Option Agreement Teck must spend an additional $2.2 million by the end of 2017 to exercise the “First Option” and earn Teck/Korea Zinc an undivided 51% interest in the Pie Option Properties. Upon exercising the First Option, Teck would have an additional option (the "Second Option") to acquire a further 19% interest in the properties for a total of 70%, by incurring an additional $5.0 million in exploration expenditures on or before December 31, 2019.
Expenditures for the recently completed 2016 exploration program on the Pie Option Properties are anticipated to be on the order of $1.5 to $1.7 million.
Akie Property
The Company’s flagship Akie property is situated within the Kechika Trough, the southernmost area of the regionally extensive Paleozoic Selwyn Basin, one of the most prolific sedimentary basins in the world for the occurrence of SEDEX zinc-lead-silver and stratiform barite deposits.
Drilling on the Akie property by Canada Zinc Metals since 2005 has identified a significant body of baritic-zinc-lead-silver SEDEX mineralisation known as the Cardiac Creek deposit. The deposit is hosted by siliceous, carbonaceous, fine grained clastic rocks of the middle to late Devonian Gunsteel Formation.
The Company has outlined a NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource at Cardiac Creek, including an indicated resource of 19.6 million tonnes grading 8.2% zinc, 1.6% lead and 13.6 g/t silver (at a 5% zinc cut-off grade) and an inferred resource of 8.1 million tonnes grading 6.8% zinc, 1.1% lead and 11.2 g/t silver (at a 5% zinc cut-off grade).
Ken MacDonald P.Geo., Vice President of Exploration, is the designated Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the technical information contained in this release.
The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
CANADA ZINC METALS CORP.
“PEEYUSH VARSHNEY”
PEEYUSH VARSHNEY, LL.B
CEO & CHAIRMAN