As its name suggests, American West Metals is focused on copper base metals in the North America, and has paid more than A$1 million to option the three projects from vendors including two TSXV-listed companies, Aston Bay Holdings and InZinc Mining
The three foundation projects underpin its initial public offer that is seeking to raise a minimum $11 million at 20c, with capacity to take a further $4 million in oversubscriptions.
Canaccord Genuity has been appointed lead manager for the raising.
A former banker, Prineas is joined at AWM by two veteran geologists, co-founder David O'Neill as managing director, plus current Firefinch MD Michael Anderson as the independent non-executive director.
The three projects comprise the West Desert polymetallic and Copper Warrior projects in Utah, and the more remote Storm and Seal project in Canada's Nunavut province - both jurisdictions described as "mining friendly".
Two of the projects come with Canadian NI 43-101 resource estimates: West Desert hosts a 59 million tonne historical zinc-copper resource, including a high-grade 16.5Mt at 6.3% zinc and 0.3% copper with credits for indium, silver, gold and lead.
Indium, a critical mineral, is described as "present in unusually high levels".
Copper Warrior, in Utah's Paradox Basin, is also targeting sediment-hosted copper in an area 15km north-west of the producing 37Mt at 0.46% Lisbon Valley heap leach operation
Copper Warrior covers some 14sq.km along the Lisbon Valley fault, and is interpreted to host the same geological formations, and there are numerous occurrences of the red metal recorded at surface.
The Nunavut projects cover some 4000sq.km of the uninhabited Somerset Island. Just 5% of a 120km-long interpreted mineralised trend has been explored by drilling, and could represent a district-scale mineral camp, AWM said.
Seal is a Mississippi Valley-type deposit containing a 1Mt at 10.24% zinc and 46.5 grams per tonne silver for 103,000t zinc and 1.5 million ounces silver resource.
AWM says Seal's mineralisation is of the same age as the world-class Polaris zinc-lead deposit to the north. There are numerous widespread zinc soil anomalies already mapped in the Seal area.
Storm is described as a high-grade, sediment-hosted discovery with multiple, thick high-grade copper intersections at a number of target zones that is ready for extensional and resource drilling.
The copper mineralisation at Storm appears to strike for over 2.5km, plus there are numerous outcrops in the wider area grading up to 32%.
AWM plans to spend $8.5-11 million over the first two years, and has speculated it could see a pathway to production in Utah in that time.
O'Neill and Prineas expect to be key shareholders with almost one third of the stock post-listing, while InZinc will own between 7-9%.
