Element 29 drills 0.56% copper over 329.4 metres at Flor de Cobre, Peru
Element 29 Resources Inc. [ECU-TSXV; EMTRF-OTC] reported results of the final three holes from the recently completed 4,532-metre, 12-hole drill program at the 100%-owned Flor de Cobre Copper Project located in southern Peru.
Flor de Cobre Drilling Highlights Drillhole FDC011, located along the northwest margin of the permitted drilling area intersected 329.4 metres of 0.56% copper from 183.1 metres, including 100.1 metres of 0.99% Cu of enriched mineralization. Drillhole FDC012 intersected 393.1 metres of 0.51% copper, 0.005% molybdenum, 1.5 g/t silver from 79.9 metres, including 152.1 metres of 0.82% copper of enriched mineralization.
These angled drillholes add confidence to the position and geometry of the Candelaria Porphyry Complex and presence of elevated copper grades within the primary sulphide mineralization. The Candelaria Porphyry Complex is untested to the northwest, toward the large Atravesado porphyry target area.
Steve Stakiw, Element 29’s President and CEO, commented, “These final drill results from our Flor de Cobre program have further boosted confidence in geological interpretations and distribution of the Candelaria Porphyry Complex, which is important for controlling copper mineralization. This understanding will be important for our next step of undertaking a mineral resource estimate incorporating all available data from the Candelaria portion of the Flor de Cobre project.”
The company successfully completed the objectives of this latest drill program, namely confirming the reliability of historical drillholes completed by Rio Amarillo Mining and Phelps Dodge in 1994 and 1995, and to explore for primary copper sulphide mineralization underneath the enrichment blanket to depths of over 500 m on the Candelaria portion of the Flor de Cobre property. Nine historical drillholes were selected for twinning based on cumulative grade times thickness and representing approximately 70% of the total cumulative grade-thickness intersected on the property. This will allow Element 29 to use the historical information as part of a drill hole dataset for the estimation of mineral resources that meets the CIM best practice guidelines.
The drill program consisted of 4,532 metres of diamond drilling centred on the Candelaria Porphyry Complex. A total of 3,055 metres was allocated to twin nine historical drillholes to verify the accuracy of existing historical geochemical assays and drill logs. The first nine drillholes of the 2022 Flor de Cobre drill program included 349 metres of 0.77% copper, including 123 metres of 1.42% copper. The remaining 1,477 metress in three drillholes noted in this news release was allocated to test the primary copper sulphide mineralization potential below the supergene enrichment blanket to depths of more than 500 metres.
The company continues to progress drill permitting on Atravesado in preparation for initial drill-testing of a priority porphyry target supported by coincident outcrop geology, surface geochemistry, and geophysical responses. Atravesado is located approximately 2 km northwest of Candelaria and is a 1.5 km x 1.6 km circular zone characterized by outcropping copper oxide mineralization in association with quartz vein stockworks and potassic alteration. Late-mineral porphyry dikes are also mapped within the target area.
Flor de Cobre is a porphyry copper exploration project that contains the Candelaria Porphyry Complex and the recently outlined Atravesado porphyry copper target. The property is in the Southern Peru Copper Belt and is five km northwest of Nexa Resources’ Chapi mine and 26 km southeast of the Cerro Verde mine owned by Freeport-McMoRan, Sumitomo Metal Mining, and Compania de Minas Buenaventura.