The company said drilling reinforced the importance of the core of the deposit to the overall resource at Casino by long intercepts of above-resource grades in both the leached cap and sulphide zones, with highlights including more than 200m grading 0.86%, 0.97% and 0.81% copper equivalent in different holes within the sulphide zone.

The highest grade intercept was 65.8m grading 2.53% copper equivalent from just below surface, one of the highest-grade intercepts to date on the property.

"Intercepted grades encountered in and around this area are some of the highest drilled to date on the property, and importantly occur at the top of the sulphide zone in these areas, representing material that will be mined early on during operations," said Western Copper and Gold president and CEO Paul West-Sells.

The good news keeps on coming for Western Copper which earlier this month announced that the Yukon Government awarded a contract for the Carmacks bypass project, the first section of the Casino project access road and a $29.6 million investment. This followed the May announcement that Rio Tinto made a C$25.6 million strategic investment in the company to help advance Casino.

The company published an updated preliminary economic assessment in June for a 25-year openpit operation to produce an average annual 178 million pounds of copper, 231,000 ounces of gold, 1.36 million ounces of silver and 16.6Mlb of molybdenum following an initial capital investment of C$3.25 billion.

Shares in Western Copper and Gold are trading at C$1.77, valuing the company at $268 million.