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

Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU)(OTC: CHKKF) CEO David Kelley on the Excitement of Generating a Maiden Copper-Gold-Silver Resource in Peru

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of Chakana Copper — Mr. David Kelly. Dave, how are you today?

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

Gerardo Del Real: I am well. Thank you for asking. Thank you for taking the call on short notice. I know you're in the field and driving… so let's get right to it. You had some more excellent news this week. 

You reported 113 meters of 0.90 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 0.92% copper, and 72.8 g/t silver, or 2.13% copper equivalent, in Huancarama at the Soledad Project in Peru. 

I have to note that the gold, copper, and silver grades, as standalones, are excellent on the results that you reported. You reported 12 resource definition holes in all. But that was the highlight number. I'd love to get some context from you on it.

David Kelley: Yeah, another great batch of results coming out of Huancarama. It's a really spectacular breccia pipe. It's big. The two breccia pipes that are about 50 meters apart at surface coalesce into one big breccia body. It's got dimensions of about 100 meters by 60 meters, and it's wide open at-depth. 

I think our deepest intercept is over 480 meters now in Huancarama. And the resource is probably going to go down, I'm guessing, around 300 meters below surface. That's where most of them seem to be coming in. So wide open at-depth; really good grades. 

If you look at the pictures in the news release… just spectacular high-sulfide content mineralization. It's a really, really special breccia pipe, and we know it's got a lot of upside potential still.

Gerardo Del Real: And we're getting closer to that resource estimate that I know everybody's excited about. How are things coming along on that front? We know Peru has had its issues; Chakana has not seemed to have been affected at all. It sounds like everything's moving forward the way you expected it, right?

David Kelley: Yeah, we keep our head down. It has been unfortunate to see some of what's happened this week on some of the social fronts and stuff like that. I think some of the issues have been longstanding issues that just haven't been addressed. And I think a lot of the Andean communities are frustrated that Castillo made a lot of promises and he's coming up on his 100th day in office and they haven't seen any changes. 

So I think part of it's just frustration there. But as far as our program, head down. We're doing some geophysics now, which is really, really exciting, setting up the next wave of exploration that we're super excited about.

But in the meantime, we're crunching numbers. Assays continue to come in regularly from the lab, and we've got some more resource definition drilling results to put out. But then, soon after that, we should have the resource come out. And it'll be the initial resource just on six breccia pipes; surface down to around 300 meters in most cases, and everything's open at depth. 

So we couldn't be more excited. We've been working towards this for a long time. Super proud of the team for pulling off 32,000 meters of drilling right in the middle of a pandemic. I just think that's a monumental effort. And we're all excited and waiting to see what the resource looks like.

Gerardo Del Real: I'm excited because the drilling in 2021 has focused mostly on the north half of the project because you're permitted there. And I understand that permitting for the south half is pretty well advanced. And I can't wait for drills to start turning over there. How is that coming along?

David Kelley: Yeah, it's coming along really well. We’ve made really good progress. We're working with some really excellent groups helping us with the permit. It's all going as planned. We're making up time. We did lose some time with COVID and everything but we're making up time there. 

We're fully permitted on the north side. And I don't know the exact numbers but we have something like 60 targets there. And that's even getting refined with all of the new geophysics we're doing on the north and south side of the project. But we've got a ton of targets on the north side to test, and that's fully permitted. And then, as soon as the permit comes in for the south side, then we'll be moving to the south.

So when I tell people this… I don't really consider it a maiden resource because it's more of a demonstration of concept. What can these breccia pipes yield in terms of contained metal, continuity of mineralization, tonnes, and grade? 

And if you can see what six pipes can deliver down to 300 meters, then you can envision what those same six pipes could deliver from 300 to 600 meters. And then, you could start to see what another six pipes would bring or another 10 or 15. We don't even know how many breccia pipes are on this property, Gerardo.

I think, ultimately, there's going to be between 50 and 100. And that's just really a guess based on looking at other tourmaline breccia districts and seeing the density of tourmaline breccias we have on the north side knowing that a lot of the detailed work to define the ones on the south side still needs to be done. 

We have blind breccia pipes, as we've talked before. So this project has got immense scalability upwards in terms of future resource estimates. But we're going to start with what I think is going to be a good, healthy, respectable resource. Again, limited in its scope to just six breccia pipes. But I think people will be able to do the math and figure out what new discoveries are going to bring to the table.

Gerardo Del Real: I’ve got to believe the majors will be doing the math because copper, gold, silver; stable part of Peru… and the kind of scale that you have on this project isn't the kind of scale that you see in most projects. So great work as always, Dave. Thank you for coming on. Anything else to add to that?

David Kelley: No, just thanks for all of the attention that you guys bring us, Gerardo. We like working with you guys to help get the story out, and we couldn't be more excited about the upcoming results.

Gerardo Del Real: It makes it really easy and fun to tell the story when you're pulling out the kind of rock that you're pulling out. So thanks again, Dave. We'll chat soon.

David Kelley: You bet. Thank you, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, take care now.