NGEx Minerals Ltd. provided the fourth update on its ongoing Phase 3 drill program at the 100% owned Lunahuasi high-grade copper-gold-silver project in San Juan province. Eight drill rigs are now turning at Lunahuasi with eleven holes completed and 16,433m drilled.
By Panorama Minero
Highlights:
Drillhole DPDH031 intersected:
- 31.65m at 8.14% copper equivalent ("CuEq") (including 8.56 g/t Au) from 128.9m, including:
- 13.00m at 15.30% CuEq (including 16.56 g/t Au) from 133.00m
Drillhole DPDH032 intersected:
- 27.40m at 25.19% CuEq (including 23.17 g/t Au) from 461.00m, including:
- 8.60m at 15.80% Cu, 69.82 g/t Au and 127.4 g/t Ag from 476.50m
- § CuEq was not reported for this interval as two samples returned >100% CuEq
Drillhole DPDH033 intersected:
- 16.25m at 6.79% CuEq from 353.00m, including:
- 4.00m at 16.39% CuEq from 353.00m, plus
- [endif]>23.00m at 4.49% CuEq from 407.00m
Drillhole DPDH035 intersected:
- 51.5m at 12.26% CuEq (including 10.42 g/t Au) from 222.00m, including:
- 21.50m at 26.68% CuEq (including 23.81 g/t Au) from 224.70m
Wojtek Wodzicki, President and CEO, commented,
Our drilling program this year was planned around testing the deposit at three ranges: short, medium and long. We have been very successful with the medium and long-range testing – discovering additional high-grade mineralization in large gaps in the drill pattern and pushing the boundaries of the deposit out to a minimum of 1,000m north-south by 1,000m east-west by 1,000m vertical. This release highlights the success with our short-range holes where we are starting to see good continuity, predictability and scale around one of the thick, high-grade intersections from last year's program. Today's results also continue to highlight the very high gold grades at Lunahuasi, which is turning out to be a very significant gold deposit as well as high-grade copper deposit_.
Short-range holes were planned to step out from the intersection in hole DPDH014 (23.0m @ 23.02 % CuEq; 14.68% Cu, 9.95 g/t Au, 123.1 g/t Ag) and we are now starting to test the size and geometry of this zone with the intersections between 40m and 100m away in holes DPDH031 (13.0m@ 15.30% CuEq), DPDH032 (27.4m @ 25.19% CuEq) and DPDH035 (21.5m @ 26.68% CuEq).
One of our key goals this year was to test the concept of a porphyry lying to the west of the Lunahuasi deposit with long-range step out holes. We currently have one of these holes well underway (DPDH027 at 1,559m) and another just starting (DPDH037 at 387m). A third hole, DPDH029, was stopped at a depth of 1,600m due to technical difficulties. Full results for these holes will be released when complete assays are available.
We have accomplished most of our program goals already this year and still have a lot left to drill. We are confident that our Phase 3 program will confirm Lunahuasi as one of the best discoveries in recent years and demonstrate that it has clear potential to develop into something well beyond what we have seen so far.
