Nova Pacific Metals Corp. announced initial results from a backpack drilling program completed on its Lara Project on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Six BQ-sized holes totalling 18.11m (59.4 ft) were drilled from one surface location using a Shaw backpack drill in order to confirm historic grades and to collect modern trace geochemistry information for massive sulphide mineralization in the Coronation Zone.

To date, Nova Pacific has obtained results from two boreholes. Hole 24BP01 intersected 3.0 m of fractured/rehealed and sheared limestone (marble) hosting thick massive sulphide layers comprising predominantly sphalerite, galena and chalcopyrite (Figure 2). The weighted average assay across the full 3 metres (9.84 ft) returned 11.67 g/t Au, 373 g/t Ag, 21.33% Zn, 4.23% Pb, and 1.75% Cu.

The first 0.9 metres (2.95 ft) of Hole 24BP02 intersected massive sulphides comprising brown sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite and pyrite. This interval assayed 3.16 g/t Au, 462 g/t Ag, 46.03% Zn, 7.54% Pb, and 2.13% Cu. The remaining 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) intersected fractured/rehealed limestone (marble) with a matrix of sulphides, including brown sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite and pyrite.

This interval assayed 1.375% Zn, 0.56% Pb, 0.515% Cu, 0.479 g/t Au and 165 g/t Ag. Together with the Coronation Extension and Hanging Wall zones, the Coronation Zone hosts most of the reserve and the historic resource calculations of the Lara Project. While classified as massive sulphides, these zones consist of bands, laminae and stringers of sulphide minerals in a strongly silicified rhyolite host.

The Company is encouraged by these preliminary numbers and looks forward to the release of assay results from the remaining holes (24BP03-06), when they become available.