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

Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU) CEO David Kelley with an Exploration Update from the Soledad Project in Peru Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

March 25, 2020

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 this afternoon?

David Kelley: I'm doing well, Gerardo. Thank you very much. How are you doing?

Gerardo Del Real: I am well also. Thank you for asking. Obviously it's a whole new paradigm. How are you and your loved ones? I understand you're in Colorado, correct?

David Kelley: Yeah, we are. We're homebound and we're all healthy and safe. So we're thankful for that. I hope you're doing as well.

Gerardo Del Real: Likewise. Fortunate enough to be healthy and in here with family. And same deal, just kind of hunkering down. 

You had some news, and obviously it's news that we are seeing across the sector with mines being shut down and exploration and development activities being delayed, not suspended, just being delayed. Can we talk to that a bit? 

I know the Peruvian government declared a national state of emergency, I believe, a week or a week and a half ago. And so I know that period is coming up and we all anticipate maybe an extension of that. But what do we know right now?

David Kelley: Yeah, we're in the middle of that 15-day state of emergency moratorium on just about everything in Peru. They're in a much harsher quarantine there. It's a mandatory quarantine. We expect there is to be some news out this week. The end of that 15-day period is this Sunday. So they'll have to get some news out sometime this week on what the next steps are. 

My guess is that there will be an extension of that, but I have no idea how long that will be. We've made the decision to have everyone, early on during this, to have everyone start working from home just in anticipation of that. But as soon as we can get back to work, we certainly will. We will be monitoring that situation very closely.

Gerardo Del Real: And my understanding is that as soon as you get back to work, you're anticipating hopefully getting that final permit approval that you needed to restart drilling in the Paloma and Huancarama areas. Is that correct?

David Kelley: Yeah, that is correct. We were within five weeks of getting that permit. At least that was our estimate at the time. Hopefully we can maintain our place in the queue and pick up right where we left off. We're right in the very final stages of that. The ministry is very well aware of our permit delays and what we've been through. Obviously they want to get things restarted as soon as possible. So hopefully as soon as the government gets back to work then we'll pick up that position where we were in the queue and then four to five weeks later have that permit in hand and start drilling right away.

Gerardo Del Real: You're in great shape financially. I believe you have approximately $7 million in cash, $7 million Canadian. You have a market cap just above that, at $9.5 million. I also understand that you completed a ground magnetic survey prior to the suspension of exploration. 

Can we speak to that and when will we get results from that?

David Kelley: Yeah, that was work that was started in January. It was actually started in the rainy season. But we're fortunate where we're located in Peru, the rainy season is really not that intense and the guys can get started at daybreak and work till about two o'clock in the afternoon when the rains come in heavy. They were able to knock out that survey. It's a very detailed MAG survey at the broadest spacing over the extent of the property. It's 100-meter line spacing, but within the zone of breccia pipes themselves, we tightened it up to 25-meter spacing. 

We have multiple objectives with this survey. One is to better understand the structure. Magnetic state is often very, very good in elucidating the structural setting of a property. It also is just really good for geology, different rock type units, contacts, that type of thing. 

But we're also hoping that we will be able to directly target the breccia pipes themselves because they're non-magnetic features sitting within magnetic host rock. So we're hoping that we'll be able to get some direct targeting information out of that. We're just starting to see the earliest images and we're trying a variety of different processing techniques to enhance these three different types of objectives we had for the survey. 

So I expect within the next month we'll have some images and some data presentations that we can really sink our teeth into from an interpretation standpoint and start getting some of that information out.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it and looking forward to reporting on it as soon as the data comes back. Anything else that you'd like to add, David?

David Kelley: Well, just that we're very productive in working with that new data. We're also working on resource work internally, just looking at the breccia pipes that we've already drilled. We're continuing to work on a metallurgical program. So we have a number of initiatives that are active at the moment. 

We are well-financed. We're still actively engaged with Gold Fields, our number one shareholder that came in last year. They're still very excited about the project. We have our monthly advisory panel meetings dealing with the technical aspects of the project. So even though the world's largely shut down, we're staying active with lots of data, lots of information, and continuing to try to improve our knowledge of the project.

Gerardo Del Real: It's a great time to get that done. Thank you very much for the update, David. And again, when you get that data back, I'd love to have you back on.

David Kelley: Absolutely, Gerardo. Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you. You as well.