Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU)(OTC: CHKKF) – currently trading below US$0.60 per share – is a Canadian-based mineral exploration firm that’s advancing the high-grade gold-copper-silver Soledad Project in central-Peru.
We’ve been keeping you up-to-date on the company’s phase 3 drill program highlighted by consistent high-grade gold-copper-silver intercepts from relatively shallow depths.
Previous intercepts from the Paloma West target include 22.65 meters of 2.81 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 3.80% copper, and 56.2 g/t silver (9.36 g/t gold equivalent) from 48 meters -- and 10.7 meters of 7.25 g/t gold, 10.2% copper, and 163.5 g/t silver (24.99 g/t gold equivalent) from 32.4 meters.
Yesterday, Chakana released assays from four additional holes at Paloma West highlighted by 12.2 meters of 5.76 g/t gold, 2.98% copper, and 252 g/t silver (13.61 g/t gold equivalent) from 21.6 meters.
Chakana CEO, David Kelley, whom you’re about to hear more from, commented via press release:
“These additional results confirm the consistent high-grade nature of mineralization at Paloma West. Drilling thus far has encountered a near-surface, high-grade zone of breccia that appears to be cylindrical in shape with an approximate diameter of 35 m down to 100 m depth below surface. Mineralization is open at depth and we look forward to chasing the mineralization deeper. Paloma West appears to be associated with a much larger breccia system that also includes Paloma East and several other targets in the Paloma area.”
That, my friend, is what’s known in the industry as… Building momentum by way of the drill!
The high-grade hits continue to be generated with excellent consistency which is precisely what geologists look for in delineating large mineralized systems through geophysics and drilling.
To give you an idea of the immense exploration upside that exists at Soledad – 31,000 meters of drilling has been completed to-date, testing 8 of 23 confirmed breccia pipes, with more than 92 total targets identified.
As a continuation of the phase 3 program, the Chakana team now has the drills turning at the Huancarama target where the first 10 holes have been completed.
Chakana shareholders can expect one final batch of assays from Paloma West wherein the focus will immediately shift to Huancarama where the drills are intersecting breccia as we speak.
Our own Gerardo Del Real of Junior Resource Monthly and Junior Resource Trader sat down with Chakana CEO, David Kelley, to discuss the latest intercepts from Paloma West… plus a broader view of the mineralized system connecting Paloma East and Paloma West… and a sneak peak at the drilling underway at Huancarama.
Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU)(OTC: CHKKF) CEO, David Kelley, on Latest High-Grade Gold-Copper-Silver Intercepts at Paloma West Target, Soledad Project, Peru
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president and CEO of Chakana Copper, Mr. David Kelley. Dave, how are you this morning?
David Kelly: I'm doing great, Gerardo. Thank you very much.
Gerardo Del Real: Happy shareholder. You had some news this morning — more high grade, more near surface. Let me read the headline. It says,
“Chakana Copper intersects 12.2 meters of 5.76 grams per tonne gold, 2.98% copper, and 252 grams per tonne silver from 21.6 meters at Paloma West at the Soledad Project in Peru.”
That's 13.61 grams per tonne gold equivalent – or 16.34% copper equivalent if you're copper inclined – just on hole 145. Can you provide some context? Spectacular results again.
David Kelly: Yeah. These results are just additional confirmation of the high-grade nature of Paloma West, which we expected these results to continue in that manner.
Just looking at the mineralization, if you get a chance, look at those photographs that are in today's news release… mineralization is just really, really stunning. Very, very high concentrations of chalcopyrite, which is the copper-bearing mineral.
Detailed core photos from Paloma West: SDH20-145 (64.1m) chalcopyrite-pyrite-tourmaline replacement; SDH20-147 (31.9m) chaotic breccia with clasts replaced by chalcopyrite-pyrite; SDH20-147 (33.25m) chaotic breccia with clasts replaced by chalcopyrite-pyrite; SDH20-148 (20.1m) mosaic breccia with chalcopyrite-pyrite cement; F) SDH20-148 (66.7m) mosaic breccia with chalcopyrite-pyrite cement.
We often see very high silver grades going with that. But what seems to be kind of unique or special about Paloma West is we're getting very, very high gold grades going with this style of mineralization — so that's a really exciting development for Paloma West.
We're getting 4 or 5, 7 grams of gold over significant intervals to go with the copper and the silver mineralization — so it's a really exciting breccia pipe to be drilling.
Gerardo Del Real: You referenced the cylindrical shape of the breccia. Can you speak to that a bit?
David Kelly: Yeah. So this pipe – whereas Paloma East started off with a 25-meter diameter at surface, and that blossomed to about 50 meters diameter at 150 meters down, and then a hundred meters diameter – but it's really getting bigger as we go deeper.
This pipe so far is – and we've only drilled this one down to about a hundred meters so we don't know a lot about the depth extent geometry as we go deeper – but so far, it's more of a cylindrical shape that's fairly constant.
When the breccia pipe is getting bigger and expanding – and you're seeing that in the drilling – it's a lot easier to step back and figure out where to drill. When it stays kind of in that vertical cylindrical shape, it's a little bit more challenging.
And you'll notice that one of the drill holes that we drilled missed the breccia. That's just a consequence of trying to figure out the geometry and stuff like that. But we do know that as we go deeper on these breccia pipes, they generally do get bigger at depth. So we expect that to happen with Paloma West as well.
We just have to figure out where that continuation at depth is and continue drilling that and getting to the deeper extent of the breccia. And I expect that we'll start seeing expanded depth once we get down at deeper levels.
Gerardo Del Real: You also mentioned that Paloma West appears to be associated with a much larger breccia system that also includes Paloma East and several other targets. Can you expand on that a bit?
David Kelly: Yeah. So we always had the idea that the Paloma area had a really strong structural control because the breccias just line up like pearls on a necklace, if you will. And that includes Paloma East and Paloma West, the principal breccias, and then there are smaller breccia bodies to the northeast and the southwest.
After putting all the data together in our 3D model for Paloma East and Paloma West, we see this structure very clearly. It's a really important controlling structure. And it seems to have pre-existed before the brecciation — so it's a conduit type of structure.
It's the kind of structure that likely controlled the location of the breccia bodies and also the fluids that came up that structure and then invaded into the breccia bodies.
But then when we zoom out… and we've always talked about that we have 92 targets on the property and that those are defined by a variety of different exploration approaches, geophysics – different types of geophysics, geochemistry, alteration mapping – that type of thing.
When you zoom out from the Paloma area and project that structure way further to the northeast – like all the way up to Breccia No. 1 and then down to the southwest – there's a whole series of these targets that lineup right on that structure.
So it's lit up that structure as a live feature of the mineralized system that needs to be explored in detail. Not only just the immediate Paloma area – which we already know has this big geophysical anomaly sitting in between Paloma East and Paloma West – but even along strike to the northeast and northwest it seems to be controlling these other targets that we have.
So it's a really, really exciting development.
Gerardo Del Real: Huancarama – that has been long speculated the best target on this land package – how is that coming along? I see that you've drilled, I believe, 10 holes.
David Kelly: Yeah, it’s going great. It's a big area, of course, so we got down there and we're just going through the motions of testing the different targets — and it's going really well. The drilling has been very productive and the geologists are doing a great job keeping the drill turning in breccia.
So I'm really, really excited to get results back from that. We still have results on Paloma West to get out. We'll have one more batch of drill results, and that'll finish off Paloma West, and then we'll be moving on to Huancarama — and I'm really excited to come back on and talk to you about that.
Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Any updates on the metallurgical work? I know in the summertime, you and I chatted about that and the importance of it, and it appeared it was going well. How is that coming along?
David Kelly: Yeah, it's advancing. We did have some delays with COVID-19. The bigger labs were able to continue to operate, and our regular assay lab that we use for the drilling assays has been real steady and good turnaround times — as you've seen and we've discussed that.
The metallurgical labs are much more specialized, and we were working with a couple of different labs – one in Australia and one in Lima – and we were shipping concentrates or shipping composite samples around — and that was taking a lot of delay and stuff like that.
So that particular program was set back by COVID-19 more than anything else, but the samples are in the lab now and they're working with them and we're making good progress.
We're working on a program to help us understand the variability within the breccia pipes to then better choose composite samples that will be studied with more standard metallurgical approaches — looking at concentrate flotation, looking at leachability of gold, and that type of thing.
So it's going well. We've got some really good people on that. That's a program that's really well supported by Gold Fields. And I'm sure, in 2021, we'll be moving forward with talking about results from that work.
Gerardo Del Real: Lastly, I have to ask… how are things in the field in regards to COVID and the situation that, of course, is so fluid — right?
David Kelly: Yeah. Again, I say this every time, knock on wood, but everything is going really smoothly. The team has got a great system in place for testing people.
There's a quarantine and testing protocol before people go onto the project. And then, while they're on the project, they're in basically a COVID-free area. And then, before they go home to go back to their families, we test them again just to make sure that they're safe to go home and they're not taking anything back with them.
So far, we haven't had any COVID cases on the project, which is great. And we also have our fully installed camp. It's about a 40-man camp installed on the project. So the people go to the project, they stay on the project, and they work 40 days — and then they come off.
So that whole change to a camp-based exploration program with these protocols has worked really well for us and we'll continue to maintain that.
Gerardo Del Real: Great work all around, Dave. Congrats again!
David Kelly: Thank you, Gerardo. And it's really an attribute to the team down there. They're doing a great job. And lots of companies have tried to put together exploration programs during this difficult time. And my hat's off to all the explorers out there that are working hard, trying to generate/advance their projects in a very difficult time.
We're certainly fortunate to have a really great team working for us down there.
Gerardo Del Real: Well said! Thanks again, Dave. We'll chat soon.
David Kelly: Thank you, Gerardo. Have a great day.
Gerardo Del Real: You as well.
Mike Fagan has mining in his blood. As a teenager he staked countless gold and silver properties in Nevada alongside his dad, Brian Fagan, who created the Prospect Generator model that’s still widely used today in the resource space. One of those staking projects was put into production by a major Canadian mining company — a truly rare and profitable experience. That background uniquely qualifies him as a mining stock speculator. One of the most well-known names in the business, Mike is now putting that experience to use for the benefit of Resource Stock Digest and Hard Asset Digest readers.
