RE:CDB Attracts JV Interest Amid Colombia Copper HuntCordoba Minerals (CVE:CDB) is hoping to develop a high grade copper-gold district at its large land package in Colombia, with the junior company already attracting the likes of industry majors to its properties on the back of some early drilling results that prove its discovery could be quite rare. The Canadian company’s San Matias project covers 27,000 hectares in what Cordoba believes is the northern extension of the famous Mid Cauca gold belt, where north of 50 million ounces of gold has been discovered so far. “The problem with the belt is that it’s a mountainous region, with lower grade gold style deposits, making the economics extremely difficult. Our discovery is on the northern extension of Mid Cauca, giving it two key distinguishing factors,” says president and CEO Mario Stifano. “Firstly, the topography, with elevations of 100 to 150 metres versus 1,500 to 3,000 metres of other deposits in the region, makes it ideal for open pit mines. The second distinguishing factor is that it’s right in the middle of infrastructure, with two large open pit mines nearby.” Indeed, just 20 km away from San Matias sits the world’s third largest nickel mine, Cerro Matoso, owned by BHP Billiton, which has operated there for 30 years and has another 30 years of reserves to mine through, according to Stifano. There are also coal open pit mines just 10 km away, meaning Cordoba’s project is only 10 km from a power grid and nearby towns. San Matias is also about 200 km north of Medellin. The infrastructure and the low elevation are huge factors in developing a mine, as capital costs are significantly reduced as a result, yielding robust economics for all involved. Cordoba has just begun exploring its promising property, but results so far have impressed. It has only drilled four holes to date, with the highlight hole on the Montiel East target returning 101 metres at 1% copper and 0.65 grams per tonne (g/t) gold. The junior explorer is preparing to start diamond drilling just 700 metres to the west of this highlight hole later this month, on the Montiel West prospect. “There is 1km of strike between the east and west Montiel targets, and we think there is lots of potential here to build a lot of copper tonnes very fast,” says the chief executive. Cordoba has also identified a large porphyry two km south of the Montiel targets, known as Costa Azul, where trenching returned 75.6 metres at 1 g/t gold and 0.3% copper within a large 200 metre plus mineralized zone. In addition, the company boasts the Buenos Aires prospect, which is located just 1 km south of Costa Azul, where channel sampling has returned approximately 4% copper in 38 samples over significant widths, with bonus elevated levels of light rare earth oxides and uranium. The bottom line: this is just the beginning of the exploration stage, with the company only looking at the top four km of a 13km district. Cordoba came to find this potentially game-changing land back in 2011 through one of its shareholders, and worked to consolidate various assets owned by different entities under one company, finally succeeding in its mission in March 2014. In fact, one of the properties owned by Cordoba now is right in the centre of BHP’s land package, but was never a focus for the mining giant, which had already identified a 30-year reserve and never explored for additional minerals. Indeed, there has been no known prior exploration of the copper and gold mineralization at Montiel West, Montiel East and Costa Azul, says Cordoba. “We are looking to demonstrate to the market that we have a district-scale project, as we continue to drill. We want to be able to show the market we have locked up a high grade and potentially very rare copper-gold district,” explains Stifano. To achieve this, the company raised $15 million in January, becoming “one of the first companies out of the gate to raise capital this year,” says the chief executive. “Top funds put money into our company because they saw real potential for a district scale project.” Names such as RBC Asset Management, BlackRock and Geologic are all investors in Cordoba. “Whether we prove it now, in six weeks or six months, I am very confident we’ve got an exciting district,” proclaims Stifano. Industry majors are confident as well, with visitors of the property including Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO), Goldfields and Anglo American (LON:AAL). “They all believed that it was a risk, because of the early exploration stage, but that there was a definite shot for a major discovery,” adds the chief executive. Currently, Cordoba has plans to drill about 2,000 metres by the end of the summer, and could drill another 4,000 afterward subject to the first results. “We raised the capital to be aggressive, not to sit on it,” the CEO stressed. Stifano anticipates the capital will last, as per its current plans, until roughly the first quarter of next year, with the company designing its latest capital raise in such a way that if its shares trade at $2.50, then another $22.5 million of equity will come in due to a forced warrant exercise, allowing Cordoba to avoid markets for at least three years. It’s a lofty game plan, but one that the CEO thinks will succeed, with the intent to have two to three targets in its portfolio that it has yet to explore, always remaining one step ahead of itself. The company has a stellar management team and board of directors supporting its growth, according to Stifano, with the CEO of Continental Gold, Ari Sussman, as the current chairman of Cordoba, and the former CEO of Kennecott Minerals, Bill Orchow, as a director. Stifano himself has more than 12 years of experience in the mining sector as the former CFO of Lake Shore Gold among other roles, raising over $600 million for financing projects. “We’ve got the expertise to move forward to the development stage or even to put the properties into production,” he says. “The topography and infrastructure are huge distinguishing factors from everything else in Colombia right now. It’s a large land package, so we are not tied to one discovery.” After spending the next 12 months drilling what it believes will be multiple discoveries, the next step is a program of resource definition drilling, expected sometime in 2015. On top of the 27,000 hectares in land, Cordoba also has another 200,000 hectares of ground in the area pending government approvals. The government has yet to issue the final ownership paperwork, but the company has every expectation that the process will go ahead. The company is certainly a promising story for investors looking for substantial potential upside. As Stifano puts it, “We’ve locked up the remaining prospective land in Cordoba. If you are interested in exploring copper and gold prospects in the region, you have to deal with us.”