SoGold encouraged by Ecuador copper drilling news

SolGold [SOLG-TSX, LSE] on Wednesday released an update on regional exploration activities at the company’s 100%-owned Rio Amarillo copper porphyry project in northern Ecuador, held 100% by Carnegie Ridge Resources SA.

Rio Amarillo is located in Imbabura province 35 kilometres southeast of the company’s Alpala deposit on the Cascabel project where the release of pre-feasibility study was delayed earlier this week to enable the company to consider various assumptions impacting the study, including whether what are currently considered as upside options should be further evaluated and incorporated as part of the PFS base case so as to provide a more indicative and robust valuation of the Cascabel project.

Upside options under review, include earlier underground access, mine and mill optimizations, extending Casabel Resources, hydroelectric power, among others, offering further optionality and potential for improved economics.

According to a preliminary economic assessment, the Cascabel project can produce an average of 207,000 tonnes of copper, 438,000 ounces of gold and 1.4 million ounces of silver in concentrates per year over the first 25 years of operations.

The Rio Amarillo tenement area consists of three concessions, covering 123 square kilometres.

It holds three large-scale porphyry targets at Varela, Chalanes, and Palomar. The location is geologically consistent with regional distribution of porphyry deposits along significant parts of the Ecuadorian Andean Porphyry Belt.

Partial assays to 1,052 metres depth in the sub-vertical hole (RDH-21-001) at Varela returned 72.0 metres of 2.16 g/t gold from 639.7 metres, including 24 metres at 5.77 g/t gold. Assay results from 1,052 metres to the end of the hole at 1,708.1 metres are pending.

“This is a very encouraging result from the first drill hole ever into Rio Amarillo, which is one of our highest priority projects,” said Jason Ward, Head of Exploration at SolGold. “The mineral assemblage and alteration styles encountered in Hole 1 suggest that the hole has passed along the periphery of a vertically extensive porphyry gold-copper-molybdenum deposit,” he said.

A second hole is now positioned to test below the central portion of the Varela Mo/Mn surface anomaly at Varela, which is of similar size to the zone of anomalous mo/mn at the Alpala porphyry deposit.

The company said a conspicuous geological feature of the Rio Amarillo project area is a cluster of preserved lithocap zones discovered through geological mapping, and further delineated by geochemical and airborne magnetic surveys, that are visible from the air.

On November 23, SolGold shares closed at 40.5 cents and trade in a 52-week range of 69 cents and 35 cents.