Ecuador Mining News Mid June
Company News
Aurania Intersects Sediment Hosted Copper
It's getting easy to mix up what Aurania is up to as they have a very large area and their plans are changing as they get results. So here's a recap.
Aurania has a huge area that while not rectangular runs 90km north to south and 50km wide. I am not aware that any of it has any historical drilling. Aurania has three broad areas they are exploring. In the north is Tiria-Shimpia, which has zinc and silver outcropping and in soil. South of that is Tsenken, which has copper in outcrop and soil. Then to the far south is Kuri-Yawi.
Aurania started out with one drill rig in September 2020 in the Tsenken (middle) area because it was the most remote and covid was a concern TS-001, TS-002, and TS-003 targeted the N2 magnetic anomoly and totaled 645m. They then moved on to the next magnetic anomoly north N3 and drilled two holes TS-004 & TS-005 from the same pad totaling 724m by the end of November 2020. Based on the early drill results they decided their existing magnetic survey wasn't good enough and decided to fly MobileMT geophysics. By Jan 2021 while waiting for new geophysics they drilled TS-006 to a depth of 522m into a mag low following the north mineralization trend. In order to continue drilling north they would have had to move camp, so instead in Feb 2020 they moved the drill to target the N1 anomoly, aided by MobileMT survey producing a new target within reach of the current camp.
TNS1 is Tsenken N1 magnetic anomoly target. Hole TSN1-001 had a depth of 722m. It intersected native sediment hosted copper (assays pending). TSN1-002, TSN1-003 are completed and TSN1-004 is in progress and is planned to be 200m deep.
This latest interpretation is that Tsenken and Tiria-Shimpia may form one continious sediment hosted mineralized system similar to Kupferschiefer in Europe, a system which has been continually mined since 1200AD. The thoughts of 800 year mine life are intriguing to think about.
Aurania added a second drill and put it in Kuri-Yawi. YW-001 In Kuri-Yawi MobileMT helicopter geophycis indicated a potential porphyry. Hole YW-008 drill 1212m at a porphyry target identified by MobileMT, which the drill hole didn't find. It did find interesting but perplexing geology. Hole YW-009 went to a depth of 736m and seemed to be moving in the right direction. But the drill has instead been moved to the now drill ready Tiria-Shimpia to hunt for sediment hosted zinc/silver.
Overall they've found a lot of smoke but are still looking for the fire.
Salazar Reports More Los Osos Holes
OSO-03 reports 240 m @ 0.4 g/t Au, 0.1% Cu, and 7.1 g/t Ag from 7m. By comparison Lumina's Cangrejos project, which is the sole asset of a much larer market cap company, has a PEA that averages 0.56 g/t Au and 0.10% Cu. In that project Grand Bestia averages 0.46g/t Au, 0.08% Cu.
OSO-01 an OSO-03 are also mineralized from surface and above Cangrejos' cutoff grade of 0.3g/t AuEq. I'd love it if they could find some higher grade, but these two holes already indicate high enough grade to be satellite deposits in a larger regional bulk tonnage operation.
Looking forward to drilling at Los Santos 2.1 in the region.
Adventus & Salazar Finish El Domo Assays
There are now no drill results with assays pending. Let's build a mine! Or I guess finish feasability studies, permitting, financing, etc.
Solgold and Cornerstone Hug It Out
After a long time of publicly fueding these two companies have decided maybe it's best they just focus on saving their troubled development project Cascabel/Alpala.
As a review saving Cascabel involves redoing the plan to find an open pittable resource to start feeding the future mill while the future underground block cave development focuses on high-grading the early ore.
Titan Adds 3rd Drill Rig
One strong sign an exploration/development company is on to something is when they start increasing their drill rig count. Titan just went from 2 to 3, and plan to add a 4th this month.
Besides the increasing rig count other noteworthy is gold gets better deeper, disseminated mineralized halos around the veins, and other forshadowing of potential good news in future assays.
Looking forward to more concrete press releases with assay results in the future.
Solaris Starts Drilling East
Solaris is stepping out 1km to the east from the cluster of drill holes in Central. We may start to see exactly how big of an ore body they have.
Interesting Company Presentations
Aurania virtual roadshow (video)
Salazar at Arlington Exploration Masterclass (video)
Disclosure
Of the companies mentioned in this article I have long positions in Salazar, Aurania, & Titan that were purchased in the public markets. I have not received any compensation or special access to private placements from any of the companies discussed.