In first drilling on its recently acquired Alacran copper-gold project, Cordoba Minerals (CDB-T) hit a series of broad copper-gold intercepts.
The intercepts included up to 111 metres @ 1.01% copper and 0.38 g/t gold and were on the north end of the Alacran copper-gold deposit, in northwestern Colombia.
The latest drilling yielded higher than typical grades at Alacran, where a non-NI 43-101 inferred resource has pegged the deposit at 37 million tonnes at 0.62% Cu and 0.40 g/t. The deposit comes close to surface.
Cordoba Minerals President and CEO Mario Stifano said in a phone interview Monday that the latest drilling -- covering 270 metres strike of a steeply dipping skarn deposit -- expands on historic exploration of a 1.3-km mineralized trend, suggesting the potential to build on historic resources.
Further, the latest drilling targeted a more intensely mineralized zone at Alacran, Stifano said.
Other intercepts in the 3,000-metre program included 29 metres @ 2.72% copper and 1.16 g/t gold and 109 metres @ 0.95% copper and 0.35 g/t gold. Drilling at Alacran will support a resource estimate expected to come out in the second half of the year.
BIGGER PICTURE
The Alacran drilling is also part of more ambitious plans for the broader San Matias project.
Cordoba has partnered with Robert Friedland's High Power Exploration (HPX, earning in up to 65%) on San Matias to identify and test undrilled targets.
"We think we have a big system," Stifano said, noting Alacran among other skarns. "Now we have to find the big one."
That broader potential is what drew Cordoba and HPX to the project and underpins their strategy. Guided by HPX geophysics, they plan to identify and drill multiple targets on the project looking for both skarn and larger porphyry deposits.
HPX has been running its Typhoon geophysics system on the property and initial results are set to come out soon. Drilling will come thereafter, likely in the second half of this year.
For more: news releases here.
Cordoba Minerals (CDB-T)
Shares outstanding: 66.1 million
Cash: $1.9 million (September 2015); and in February HPX, which owns 37% of Cordoba, exercised $1.5m in warrants.
Marketcap: $57 million
