Marimaca and Los Andes Copper buoyant over Chile prospects

Marimaca Copper Corp. has completed the first five drill holes of the 22,500m infill drilling campaign at the Marimaca Oxide copper deposit in northern Chile near Antofagasta and it has nearly finalised the MOD depth extension (MAMIX) drilling program which will completed in parallel.

Drill pad construction in the southern area of the MOD has exposed zones of copper oxide mineralization in areas previously considered to be unmineralised. The MAMIX campaign is to be increased to up to 10,000m (from 2,500m) following a positive metallurgical review, and aims to complete drilling by Q2.

Sergio Rivera, Vice President Exploration of Marimaca Copper, was pleased with the smooth start of the 2022 infill campaign at the MOD. 

​​​​​​​“The programme’s objective is to convert our existing Inferred Resources to the Measured and Indicated Categories for the mid-year MRE, which will then form the basis for the Feasibility Study planned for the second half of 2022,” he said. 

“The discovery of the MAMIX zone offers outstanding potential to increase the overall scale of the Marimaca Project. We recently released an Exploration Target to quantify the potential size of this opportunity and we intend to test it as part of the expanded MOD infill program.”

He added that the MOD continues to show excellent continuity of near-surface copper oxide mineralisation.

“Drill pad construction has exposed green copper oxides in the southern portion of the MOD, in areas that were previously interpreted to be barren in the 2019 Resource estimate. We look forward to drilling from these newly constructed platforms and believe there may be upside to our current MOD resource model. We believe we are still in the early chapters of the discovery process at Marimaca and anticipate further growth of the deposit during 2022.”

Hayden Locke, President and CEO of Marimaca Copper, said it is now focused on realising Marimaca’s potential.

“Our internal work indicates the MAMIX presents a compelling opportunity to increase the scale of the deposit, both in terms of contained metal tonnes and potential annual production, which will be used as the basis for the Feasibility Study,” he said. “COVID continues to impact our business, especially with the relatively small size of our team, and we are working hard to mitigate these impacts on our timeline for releasing the updated MRE and commencing further engineering studies. The technical workstreams continue to advance rapidly and will be finalised well before commencing the Feasibility Study engineering.”

Los Andes Copper reports good grades at Vizcachitas after reporting US$1.65mn net loss

Los Andes Copper is similarly upbeat about Vizcachitas Copper Project in Chile, reporting excellent initial results from Hole CMV-001B and aggregate of 732m with estimated average grade of 0.51% copper Equivalent.

Average grades include 0.51% Copper and 160 parts per million Molybdenum from 64m to 820m down the hole. Assay grades for the interval reported for silver are still pending, as are the values from 820m down the hole to end of hole at 1,265.15m.

However, during the year ending September 30, 2021, the company incurred a net loss of US$1.65mn and total expenditures on the Vizchachitas Project were approximately US$3.8mn (click here).

Drilling is continuing with four drill rigs at Vizcachitas with the objectives of expanding the resources within the open pit designs and to explore the deposit below the boundaries of the open pit designed in the Preliminary Economic Assessment. The current Phase 1 drill program will expand from four to five drill rigs with 18,000m of drilling planned. The full Phase 1 drill program consists of 30,000m of drilling with potential for further expansion.

R. Michael Jones, P.Eng, CEO of Los Andes Copper, said Hole CMV-001B confirms the scale of the good grades at Vizcachitas, and the hole is near the western limit of the resources and shows clear potential for further resources to the west.

“We look forward to the assays for this hole below the current pit designs,” he said. “Though we are still awaiting assay grades for the interval reported for silver, it is important to note that silver typically reports to approximately 1% of the value on the deposit.

“The ongoing drilling program is testing areas in and below the PEA shell. There are several large areas that are taken as waste inside the previous pit designs that are classified as waste due to having no, or very limited drill testing.”

He added that while the historical fragmented land and permit position resulted in areas within the PEA pit not having any proper drill testing, the current drill program has many opportunities to offset known good grade holes with adjacent or deeper drilling into areas with no drill testing.