Bell Copper Corporation - La Balsa porphyry drilling update

TSX-V Symbol: BCU

VANCOUVER, June 30 /CNW Telbec/ - Bell Copper Corporation's wholly owned Mexican subsidiary Minera Montoro S.A. de C.V. is pleased to report progress on a three-hole, 2000-meter diamond drilling program to test the porphyry copper target immediately west of the Company's current mineral resource at La Balsa. The target comprises a 1 kilometre by 2 kilometre aeromagnetic anomaly on the western side of its 100%-owned La Balsa property located 15 kilometres north of the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, Mexico.

Drillhole MM-322, the first of three drillholes designed to test the buried porphyry target, was completed at a total depth of 661 meters after cutting long intervals of monzonite porphyry carrying strong disseminated pyrite mineralization overlying a 180-meter interval carrying multiple thin stringers of chalcopyrite.

Significant exploration milestones achieved with this drillhole include:

    
        - Confirmation of deeper porphyry copper mineralization west of the
          Company's current breccia-hosted mineral resource
        - Confirmation of the key structural model linking known shallow
          breccia-hosted copper resources to a structurally detached
          (faulted) porphyry copper root located one kilometre to the west.
        - Confirmation of the porphyry-related cause of the 1 kilometre by
          2 kilometre aeromagnetic anomaly extending westward from MM-322.
    

Mineralization in the upper half of drillhole MM-322 consisted of abundant disseminated to blebby pyrite hosted by xenolith-rich monzonite porphyry and andesitic wallrock. In contrast, the lower half of the drillhole contained more modest amounts of pyrite and nearly all of the chalcopyrite stringers that were observed. Chalcopyrite was most abundant between depths of 378 meters and 558 meters beneath a prominent shallowly dipping fault that was cut at a depth of 376 meters. This fault is believed to be the downdip projection of a major thrust fault that truncates the bottom of the oxide copper breccia resource (La Virgin) one kilometre to the east. White rhyolite ash tuff that occupies the fault zone in MM-322 is visually as well as chemically identical to a white rhyolite ash tuff that occupies the thrust fault at the base of the La Virgin oxide copper breccia body. These observations provide confirmation of the thrust fault model, which is expected to provide predictive capability in the siting of future drillholes to explore the roots of specific known breccia bodies in the upper plate of the fault.

More than half of MM-322 was drilled through nonmagnetic monzonite porphyry, which is also the principal host rock of the Company's copper breccia mineral resource to the east. Widespread destruction in MM-322 of primary magnetite in the monzonite porphyry and its andesitic wallrock due to pyrite-chalcopyrite mineralization is believed to be the cause of the prominent negative aeromagnetic anomaly that stretches two kilometres west-southwest of MM-322.

Alteration in the drillhole varied between intense sericitic alteration within xenoliths in the porphyry to pervasive orthoclase flooding. Distinctive dark gray sericite envelopes are present locally around pyrite veins ("D-veins" of porphyry copper nomenclature), though coarsely disseminated blebby pyrite hosted by light gray pervasive sericite is the most common mode of occurrence of the sulfide mineral. Fine-grained, ruby-red rutile is common in the potassically altered intervals of the monzonite porphyry beneath the thrust fault.

The base of strong potassium feldspar alteration was marked by a 6-meter wide anhydrite (calcium sulphate) breccia-vein beginning at a depth of 615 meters. Similar anhydrite veins are described in other porphyry copper deposits and represent important conduits of sulphur and other magmatic volatiles linked to mineralization. The hole was terminated at a depth of 661 meters in nearly barren pre-mineral granodiorite.

Coring operations were started last week on the next drillhole, MM-323, at a position 500 meters southwest of MM-322. Drillhole MM-323 is centrally located with respect to the aeromagnetic anomaly, caused by magnetite-destructive sulfidation (pyrite-chalcopyrite mineralization) related to the La Balsa porphyry copper system. The Company expects MM-323 to be completed in early August of this year.

About Bell Copper

Bell Copper is a public company with a focus on copper exploration, development and production in North America. The Company has an extensive portfolio of exploration and development projects located in some of North America's premier copper producing regions including Mexico, the Southwestern US and Northwestern British Columbia.

    
    ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF
    BELL COPPER CORPORATION

    "Michael Werner"

    Michael Werner, CEO & Director
    

"Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release."

For further information: Bell Copper Corporation: Sarah Stephanson, Executive Assistant, Tel.: [phone], [email protected]; www.bellcopper.net; Renmark Financial Communications Inc.: Christine Stewart, [email protected]; Jason Roy, [email protected], Tel.: [phone]; www.renmarkfinancial.com