Categories: Base Metals / Precious Metals
Topics: General Base Metals / General Precious Metals

Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU) CEO David Kelley on the Potentially Company-Making 20,000-Meter Drill Program at the Soledad Project in Peru

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU)(OTC: CHKKF), Mr. David Kelley. David, how are you today, sir?

David Kelley: Hey, Gerardo, I'm great. How are you doing?

Gerardo Del Real: I am fantastic. As you know, I've been awaiting eagerly the commencement of the Phase 3 drill program. You and I chatted in New York at the 121 Mining Investment Conference. We talked about the next step. The next step was going to give you access to some of the more highly perspective targets on the current land package that is available for drilling. I would love for you to talk about that. You told me then that the rig was ready to turn the minute that you had the approval. You have that now and the rig turning.

David Kelley: Yeah that's right, Gerardo. And we're excited too. Drilling is where it all happens in exploration and we've had great success with our original drill program and drilling some very highly, highly mineralized breccia pipes. During that time, from stopping the drilling last October to now, we've done extensive surface exploration work, geophysics, mapping, sampling, soil geochemistry and developed a really, really deep portfolio of targets.

As you know, we have over 92 targets on the property and some really exciting targets to test in this next round of drilling. We just commenced, we just completed the first drill hole in one of the highest priority targets on the property, of which there are many, and we're really excited about the continuation of this program.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. I want to try to simplify this as much as I can for readers and listeners. So there's two types of drilling that is happening or that will happen, I should say, in this Phase 3 program. And I want to break it up this way. One will be definition drilling that is designed to provide info for the completion of the initial resource estimate, which we're excited about. And the second type of drilling is exploration drilling on high-ranked targets that have never seen drilling from you before. Is that accurate?

David Kelley: Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's a little bit different than our original program because our original program was really designed about drilling several pipes in detail that had some previous drilling. So we had some idea of what the grades and geometries were. But we wanted to drill those in detail to give us much more information about the potential mineability of those in terms of their shape and their continuity and mineralization, the grade distribution, that type of thing.

We've accomplished that in that first drilling program and now we're trying to be more aggressive on the exploration side. Target testing of multiple targets that rank highly from the targeting workshop that we've done. And then identify additional pipes that have excellent potential to contribute to an ultimate resource that will be the culmination of this next drilling program.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. So second half of the year we can expect resource estimate work for sure, exploration drilling and of course the definition drilling. Is that accurate?

David Kelley: Yeah, that's right. You know our goal on the definition drilling. we have about 2,500 meters that needs to be drilled on Breccia Pipe 6 and that'll be part of this next program and then we anticipate identifying multiple breccias within the exploration drilling that have high potential and require definition drilling. We'll select most likely the best two out of those targets and then schedule those for additional definition drilling again within this approved 20,000-meter program. And the results from that plus the work that we did in the original Phase 1, Phase 2 program would be the input for an initial maiden resource for the project.

Gerardo Del Real: And as far as the exploration drilling goes, because I know this confuses a lot of people, let's kind of take the forest view, right? The way it works is every target that you are permitted to drill, or the targets you are permitted to drill, once that is complete, then you basically move onto the next set of permitted targets. Is that an accurate way to describe that, David?

David Kelley: Yeah, that's right. And we're just following the expansion of mineral rights that we've gone through on the project. If you recall, we started with an original launch and agreement with Condor which gave us mineral rights over their concessions and a permit that was restricted to that area. We then expanded to the south on two different occasions giving us a total of 2,000 hectares covering the entirety of the geologic opportunity. And so our permitting process is likewise sequential, it starts in the Condor area to expand to the Rosales area and then it expands further south where we did the deal with Barrick. And that will dictate our progress to the targets and we will always be drilling high-priority targets within the permitted areas that we have access to drill. That includes where we've started now and will continue with this 20,000-meter drill program.

Gerardo Del Real: That 20,000-meter drill program is fully funded. Correct?

David Kelley: Yep. We have a fully funded treasury for that and the initial resource estimate, so we're excited to be in that position where we're strong financially. We've got great targets and it's the dry season in Peru as you know. It's the best time to be drilling. We have been able to drill right through the rainy season as we did the in Phase 1 and Phase 2. But this is a great time to be drilling in Peru. We've got blue skies, the team's really fired up and the drill rig's turning and we're getting great production out of the drill rig.

Gerardo Del Real: That's great to hear. When can we anticipate assays? The question everybody always asks, right? Everybody waits for drilling to commence and the minute that it starts you have people like me asking, when are the assays coming?

David Kelley: Our general plan for each target is to put about three holes in each target. That may differ depending on what we get with each hole. We may find in some cases we need four holes to really get a good test on the target. Others, we may be able to do that with two holes. I would like to get the first three holes or four holes done in the first target and get those logged and sample that site, and then get those samples down to Lima to be analyzed. So I'm thinking we'll see initial results in August on the first drilling and then after that we should start seeing a fairly regular flow of information like we did when the last real program was underway.

Gerardo Del Real: Should be a fun rest of the summer and fall. I'm looking forward to having you back on, Dave. Thank you so much for your time today.

David Kelley: You bet, Gerardo. Anytime. Take care.