Aguila American advances on copper project news
Aguila American Gold Ltd. [AGL-TSXV, AGLAF-OTCQB, A2DR6E-WKN] shares were active Thursday after the company said it acquired through staking the Cora copper project in Pinal County, Arizona. Aguila said the project was identified during an extensive and ongoing project generation program targeting copper deposits within mining supportive jurisdictions in North America.
Aguila shares advanced on the news, rising 13.3% to 25.5 cents on volume of 1.27 million. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of 67 cents and 18.5 cents.
Prior to the Cora copper acquisition, Aguila had been focused on exploration at the WUSA Gold Project in Oregon. In late April, 2021, Aguila released results from an early winter drilling program at WUSA after a delay caused by a high workload and COVID-19 restrictions at the analytical laboratory.
The Cora project lies 75 kilometres northeast of Tucson, within the heart of the Arizona copper belt. The project is 100% owned by Aguila, secured by 46 granted BLM lode mining claims covering 3.84 square kilometres. The company said many of North America’s largest copper mines and development projects lie within 100 kilometres of Cora, including Ray Miami, Resolution, Florence and Silver Bell.
The project is also centred 2.0 kilometres east of the North Star copper mine under shallow cover. North Star was a producer of copper ore for Miami Copper Co. and ASARCO in the mid 1900s. Drilling at Cora was last recorded over 40 years ago, when significant widths of oxidized copper were intersected beneath shallow alluvial cover in an area exceeding one kilometre.
Drill hole (DH5), for example, returned 99.7 metres of grade 0.28% copper below 10.7 metres of alluvial cover. Drilling results are historical in nature and have not been verified by a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 compliant standards of disclosure.
They should therefore only be considered an indication of the mineral potential of the project.
“The newly staked Cora project represents an exciting first step for Aguila into copper exploration in the Western U.S.,” said Aguila President and CEO Mark Saxon.
“We have been progressively and patiently assessing projects, and Cora stands out as a significant copper prospect in one of the world’s premier copper producing regions,” he said.
Saxon went on to say in a press release that the timing of the acquisition could not be better, as secure global copper supplies are tightening, coinciding with strong demand growth as a result of a global infrastructure, electrification and renewable energy boom.
“We look forward to applying modern exploration techniques to this under explored district,” he said.