Lundin Group South American copper explorer, NGEx Resources (NGQ:TSX), has expanded the high grade zone at its Filo del Sol project, the earliest stage of three deposits the company owns along the Chile/Argentinian border.
Today NGQ announced assay results from the first 7 of 23 holes drilled between December 2013 and March 5, 2014.
The standout hole was VRC60 which intersected a wide intercept of 494m of 0.69% copper equivalent (CuEq).
Filo del Sol is located on the Argentine side of the Chilean border. Pan Pacific Copper holds a 40% interest in the project, with NGEx holding the remaining 60% and being the operator.
Of significance in this latest batch of assays is the number of high-grade intercepts they encountered in the manto zone. VRC57 and 58 intersected 10m of 2.8% copper (2.9% CuEq) and 12m of 1.42% copper (1.89% CuEq), respectively. This high-grade center will likely improve the overall grade of the resource estimate as well as the economics (if and when they decide to complete that).
A total of 8,208m was drilled and the company expects the remaining assays to be available before the end of March. These holes will be included in an initial resource estimate planned for the Filo del Sol project by the end of the year.
The drilling was focused on expanding the known mineralization at the manto zone and doing some infill work. These first seven holes were targeted on half (~1.2km) of the known extent of the mineralization of Filo del Sol, which is currently over 2.5km long.
Wojtek Wodzicki, President and CEO of NGEX commented, "The drill holes announced today are the first step in a program that has excellent potential to add to our resource base in the NGEx District. Filo del Sol has by far the largest alteration footprint of the three major copper-gold porphyry systems we have identified so far in this emerging district which includes the Los Helados and Josemaria deposits. The higher grade manto zone which includes water soluble copper sulphate mineralization adds a potentially very important upside to a very large system."
We had a chance to speak with Dr. Wodzicki during the PDAC conference and he was happy with how a recent investor tour to these projects went. He told us the company is truly at a pivotal point where this year, they will transition from an exploration story into development one with the first economic study being released.
The preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for Los Helados is planned for this year with Josemaria undergoing engineering/conceptual analysis as well.
Los Helados, the most advanced of their three world-class copper assets currently hosts 15.3 billion pounds of copper and 8.9 million ounces of gold in the Indicated category. The project is located 20km from Pan Pacific Copper's large Caserones Mine which is in development. Pan Pacific is NGEx's 40% joint venture partner on Los Helados.
Dr. Wodzicki told us Pan Pacific are great partners to have and that the two groups speak regularly on their joint venture projects.
Once Caserones is successfully completed and up and running, the focus will likely shift to Los Helados and NGEx for Pan Pacific. In the meantime, NGEx has a busy year with the first economic study planned for Los Helados and the initial resource estimate of Filo del Sol.
Here's the long-term chart: