Ecuador Gold and Copper-Latest News This Morning
Ecuador drills 476 m of 0.68 g/t Au at Santa Barbara
2013-06-13 09:06 ET - News Release
Mr. Glenn Laing reports
ECUADOR GOLD ANNOUNCES FURTHER SANTA BARBARA DRILL RESULTS OF 476 METERS OF 0.68 G/T GOLD AND 0.12% COPPER AND 146 METERS OF 0.90 G/T GOLD AND 0.12% COPPER IN DRILL HOLES DSB-26 AND DSB-27
Ecuador Gold and Copper Corp. has released long gold intercepts at its flagship Santa Barbara gold-copper porphyry deposit located within the company's 8,300-hectare Condor gold and copper project in the Zamora gold and copper belt, southeast Ecuador. Assay results from drill holes DSB-26 and DSB-27 have now been received. Drill hole DSB-27 (drilled to 772 metres) returned one of the longest mineralized intercepts to date averaging 0.68 gram per tonne gold and 0.12 per cent copper over 476 metres from 266 metres. This includes 310 metres that averaged 0.80 gram per tonne gold and 0.13 per cent copper and 144 metres at 0.89 gram per tonne gold and 0.13 per cent copper. DSB-27 was collared 100 metres southeast of DSB-23 that returned 496 metres of 0.90 gram per tonne gold and 0.13 per cent copper (EGX news release April 24, 2013). DSB-26 is a step-out hole drilled 150 metres north of the known resource in the Santa Barbara South zone that has encountered 146 metres of 0.90 gram per tonne gold and 0.12 per cent copper starting at 204 metres. This hole was located 275 metres northeast of EGX hole DSB-19 where previous results showed 420 metres of 0.57 gram per tonne gold and 0.08 per cent copper (EGX news release Oct. 17, 2012). The company has completed four more holes at Santa Barbara to follow up on recent success in extending the mineralized zone, particularly to the south and east. Assays are awaited for four drill holes DSB-28 to DSB-31. EGX results at Santa Barbara are summarized in the table.
With the completion of drill holes DSB-28 and DSB-29 (assays pending) at Santa Barbara, the company completed its previously announced 13,000-metre phase I drill program and has commissioned Al Maynard and Associates of Perth, Australia, to prepare an updated National Instrument 43-101 technical report to update drill results and recalculate resources. This report is expected to be completed by mid-July, 2013, while drilling continues at Santa Barbara with two drill rigs.
The Santa Barbara gold-copper porphyry deposit is one of four targets, including two epithermal gold targets (Los Cuyes, and Soledad), in the northern part of the Condor gold and copper concessions and the promising El Hito copper-molybdenum porphyry target located five kilometres east of Santa Barbara. These four target areas have been prioritized for resource expansion drilling by the company (see EGX news releases, Jan. 30, 2013, for recent drill results at Los Cuyes and May 22, 2013, for summary of recent drilling at Soledad and El Hito). Project locations and drill hole plan maps can be found in the project map section on the company's website and project descriptions and current resources in the June 14, 2012, technical report on SEDAR.
Santa Barbara
The Santa Barbara gold-copper porphyry deposit, which shows exceptional promise, is emerging as the company's flagship deposit. Thirteen drill holes have been drilled to extend mineralization to the north, south and east of the current resource. The table has been updated to reflect the results from drill holes DSB-26 and 27 while results for DSB-28 to DSB-31 are pending. The company has commissioned an updated resource calculation for Santa Barbara that is expected to be complete mid-July, 2013.
The Santa Barbara South zone currently hosts an inferred resource of 21.0 million tonnes of one gram per tonne gold (675,000 ounces) while the Santa Barbara North zone (500 metres to the northeast), contains a further inferred resource of five million tonnes of 0.90 gram per tonne gold (145,000 ounces). For further details see the company's website or the June 14, 2012, technical report on SEDAR.
SUMMARY OF PHASE I DRILL RESULTS FROM SANTA BARBARA (length-weighted average assays, uncapped) Interval AuEq Drill hole From (m) To (m) (m) Au (g/t) Cu (%) (g/t)DSB-19 180.00 600.00 420.00 0.57 0.08 0.68 including 191.54 293.20 101.66 1.02 0.11 1.17 and 344.10 477.00 132.90 0.62 0.10 0.75 DSB-20 0.00 400.00 400.00 0.10 0.06 0.18 DSB-21 68.00 418.00 350.00 0.74 0.11 0.89including 100.00 354.00 254.00 0.90 0.12 1.06 including 100.00 306.00 206.00 1.01 0.12 1.17including 140.00 228.00 88.00 1.35 0.14 1.54 DSB-22 190.00 674.00 484.00 0.80 0.13 0.97including 190.00 620.00 430.00 0.86 0.14 1.05 including 238.00 504.00 266.00 0.99 0.14 1.18including 238.00 368.00 130.00 1.23 0.17 1.45 DSB-23 204.00 700.00 496.00 0.90 0.13 1.07including 248.00 392.00 144.00 1.03 0.15 1.23including 310.00 350.00 40.00 1.42 0.18 1.66 and 534.00 616.00 82.00 1.16 0.15 1.36 DSB-24 190.00 482.00 292.00 0.38 0.08 0.49including 190.00 252.00 62.00 0.52 0.07 0.61 including 358.00 482.00 124.00 0.47 0.09 0.59 and 552.00 590.00 38.00 0.49 0.12 0.65 DSB-25 244.00 456.00 212.00 0.55 0.11 0.70including 302.00 430.00 128.00 0.67 0.13 0.84including 380.00 430.00 50.00 0.79 0.12 0.95including 380.00 402.00 22.00 1.16 0.15 1.36 DSB-26 204.00 350.00 146.00 0.90 0.12 1.06including 216.00 304.00 88.00 1.17 0.14 1.36 and 402.00 473.00 71.00 0.60 0.10 0.73 DSB-27 266.00 742.00 476.00 0.68 0.12 0.84including 370.00 680.00 310.00 0.80 0.13 0.97including 370.00 514.00 144.00 0.89 0.13 1.06including 368.00 444.00 76.00 0.95 0.14 1.14 Note: Gold equivalent grade (AuEq) is calculated assuming 90-per-cent recovery of copper with a $3-per-pound long-term price of copper and $1,400 long-term price for gold. The true width of downhole interval lengths are estimated to be approximately 25 per cent to 50 per cent.
The Santa Barbara South zone remains open to the north, east and south. Porphyry gold-copper mineralization is hosted by altered basaltic andesite intruded by Jurassic intrusive stocks and dikes. Major structural orientations are exhibited by steeply dipping intrusive contacts, porphyry B-type quartz veins and faults striking northwest and northeast. The 40-kilometre-long Zamora gold and copper belt in southeastern Ecuador is host to Ecuacorriente's Mirador, Panantza and San Carlos copper porphyry deposits and Kinross's Fruta del Norte epithermal gold deposit of the same age. The company cautions that reference to the nearby deposits is for information purposes only and there is no assurance that its Condor gold and copper concessions will develop into economically viable producing deposits.
Existing resources
The Condor gold project contains a measured and indicated mineral resource of 1.52 million ounces gold (within 50.4 million tonnes grading 0.94 gram per tonne gold). Additional inferred mineral resources contain 1.28 million ounces gold (within 28.4 million tonnes grading 1.4 grams per tonne gold). The measured resource consists of 54,000 ounces of gold (within 147.0 million tonnes grading one gram per tonne gold) and the indicated resources consist of 1.47 million ounces gold (within 50.3 million tonnes grading 0.94 gram per tonne). For more information, please see the company's resource table on its website or its technical report dated June 14, 2012, which is available under the company's profile on SEDAR.
These existing resources were calculated by Al Maynard and Associates in June, 2012.
Quality assurance
The company has implemented a quality assurance and quality control program to ensure that the transport, sampling and analysis of all samples are conducted in accordance with the best possible practices. Drill core is transported from the drill by employees to the company's secure core logging facility at its camp where, after geotechnical and geological logging, it is marked for sampling. The entire hole is sampled and core samples are generally two metres in length, varying at geological contacts to between 1.5 metres and 2.5 metres and are split in half by EGX employees. One-half is retained in a secure storage facility and the other half is transported by EGX employees or a bonded courier to ACME Labs' sample preparation facility in Cuenca, Ecuador, where the core sample is crushed so that 80 per cent passes a 10-mesh screen and a 250-gram split is pulverized so that 85 per cent passes a 200-mesh screen. From Cuenca ACME Labs ships the samples to their laboratory in Santiago, Chile, for analysis. The lab is ISO/IEC 17025:2005 (CAN-P-4E) certified. Where appropriate, samples are analyzed for gold by 30-gram fire assay with an AA finish and by gravimetric methods for assays over 10 parts per million. Samples are analyzed for silver and copper by ICP-ES after a four-acid digestion. For silver assays over 200 parts per million, samples are analyzed using ACME Labs 7AR method consisting of hot aqua regia digestion and ICP-ES analysis. Copper assays over 10,000 parts per million are reanalyzed using four-acid digestion with ICP-ES finish (ACME Labs 7TD method). ACME Labs is independent from the company.
Under the company's quality assurance/quality control procedures, samples are submitted for reanalysis based on their proximity to a certified reference standard that returns a value greater than three standard deviations higher or lower than the mean value for that standard. In addition, any two consecutive reference standards falling outside the two standard deviation threshold will be considered to have failed. Since every 20th sample is a reference standard, 10 samples above and below a failed standard will be reanalyzed. The same protocol will be applied to duplicate samples considered to have unacceptably divergent gold values. Periodically, random samples will be submitted to another laboratory as an external check on the results provided by the primary lab.
Qualified person
Mit Tilkov, PGeo, vice-president, exploration, of Ecuador Gold and Copper, is the qualified person, as defined by National Instrument 43-101, supervised the project fieldwork, and is responsible for the preparation of the technical information in this release.