/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN
THE UNITED STATES. ANY FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THIS RESTRICTION MAY
CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF U.S. SECURITIES LAWS./
VANCOUVER, March 5, 2013 /CNW/ - Ecuador Gold & Copper Corp. (TSX-V:
EGX), (the "Company" or "EGX") is pleased to announce assay results from drill holes DEH-06, DEH-07
and DEH-08 at its El Hito copper porphyry deposit. The El Hito deposit
is located within the Santa Barbara Sector of the Company's 8,300
hectare Condor gold and copper concessions in the Zamora Gold and
Copper Belt, Southeast Ecuador. Significant results were returned from
drill hole DEH-07 where 244m of 0.51% Cu and 1.28 g/t Ag were
encountered near surface from 8m to 252m. This included oxide
mineralization from 8m to 84m (76m) of 0.79% Cu and 1.58 g/t Ag. Drill
holes DEH-06 and DEH-08 were drilled to 580m and 550m respectively and
encountered porphyry copper mineralization from top to bottom.
The Company has now drilled five drill holes at El Hito, part of the
previously announced 10,000 meter Phase I drill program on the
Company's extensive Condor Gold property. Results are pending for
DEH-09. DEH-05 confirmed the potential for a significant porphyry
copper deposit at El Hito (see table below and Company news release
February 19, 2013) and DEH-07 confirms the potential for higher grade
zones within the larger porphyry copper deposit. Drill hole DEH-06
returned values of 0.27% Cu and 0.93 g/t Ag over 580m starting at
surface while DEH-08 encountered 518m of 0.30% Cu and 0.98 Ag starting
at 32m. For further details see the Company's web site at www.ecuadorgoldandcopper.com or the June 14, 2012 Technical Report at www.sedar.com .
Table 1 summarizes the assay results to date.
Table 1: Summary of Results from El Hito Drill Holes (length weighted
average assays, uncapped)
Drill Hole
|
From
(m)
|
To (m)
|
Interval (m)
|
Cu (%)
|
Ag (g/t)
|
DEH-05
|
8.0
|
162.0
|
154.00
|
0.32
|
1.08
|
DEH-05
|
283.15
|
315.0
|
31.85
|
0.42
|
1.20
|
DEH-05
|
478.0
|
707.0
|
229.00
|
0.40
|
0.71
|
including
|
478.0
|
614.6
|
136.60
|
0.36
|
1.49
|
and
|
631.45
|
673.0
|
41.55
|
0.73
|
3.20
|
DEH-06
|
0.0
|
580.0
|
580.00
|
0.27
|
0.93
|
including
|
228.0
|
580.0
|
352.00
|
0.31
|
1.16
|
including
|
310.0
|
428.0
|
118.00
|
0.34
|
1.08
|
DEH-07
|
8.0
|
252.0
|
244.00
|
0.51
|
1.28
|
including
|
8.0
|
84.0
|
76.00
|
0.79
|
1.58
|
DEH-07
|
252.0
|
750.0
|
498.0
|
0.16
|
0.59
|
including
|
466.0
|
482.0
|
16.00
|
0.43
|
2.89
|
DEH-08
|
32.0
|
550.0
|
518.00
|
0.30
|
0.98
|
including
|
202.0
|
536.0
|
334.00
|
0.33
|
1.08
|
-
g/t = grams per metric tonne.
-
The true width of down hole interval lengths are estimated to be
approximately 50% to 60%.
Commentary
Three of four drill holes for which the Company has results to-date
(DEH-05, DEH-06 and DEH-08) have intersected relatively continuous
copper mineralization over lengths of 500m and up to 700m from near
surface, and two holes (DEH-05 and DEH-07) have encountered grades of
0.4% to 0.5% Cu over at least 200m with highest grade sections
averaging up to 0.7% Cu. Porphyry copper mineralization is associated
with a Late Jurassic dioritic intrusive complex hosted by Jurassic age
plutonic rocks of the Zamora batholith. Two major structural
orientations are exhibited by steeply dipping intrusive contacts,
quartz veins, sulfide-mineral veinlets, and faults striking north and
northwest. The majority of the diorite complex is moderately to
strongly quartz-sericite-pyrite (phyllic) altered, overprinting
potassic alteration at depth. The 40km long Zamora Copper Gold Belt in
Southeastern Ecuador is host to Ecuacorriente's Mirador, Panantza and
San Carlos Cu 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.
10,000 Meter Phase I Drill Program
El Hito is one of four targets including two epithermal gold deposits:
the Los Cuyes deposit (where previously released results on 29 January
2013 showed 149.0m @ 0.84 g/t Au and 9.0 g/t Ag including 14.1m @
5.00g/t Au and 39.0 g/t Ag); the Soledad deposit in the northern part of the gold and copper
concessions of the Condor Gold Project; and the Santa Barbara deposit
(located within the Santa Barbara Sector of the Condor Gold project), a
gold-copper porphyry south of the epithermal district and 5 km west of
the El Hito deposit (which is also located within the Santa Barbara
Sector of the Condor Gold Project).
EGX has completed five holes at the El Hito copper porphyry target and
is now planning seven follow up holes at the Santa Barbara porphyry
Au-Cu target to the west where previously released results showed 420m
of 0.571 g/t Au including 101m grading 1.017 g/t Au (see Company News
Release, October 17, 2012 and February 26, 2013).
Drilling completed to the end of February, 2013 totaled approximately
7,700 meters and new holes are in progress at Santa Barbara with two
drill rigs currently turning.
Existing Resources
The Condor Gold Project contains a Measured & Indicated Mineral Resource
of 1.52 million ounces gold (within 50.4 Mt grading 0.94 g/t gold).
Additional Inferred Mineral Resources contain 1.28 million ounces gold
(within 28.4 Mt grading 1.4 g/t gold). The measured resource consists
of 54,000 ounces of gold (within 147,000 Mt grading 1.0 g/t gold) and
the indicated resources consist of 1.47 million ounces gold (within
50.3 Mt grading 0.94 g/t). For more information, please see the
Company's resource table at www.ecuadorgoldandcopper.com or its Technical Report dated June 14, 2012 which is available under
the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
Quality Assurance
The Company has implemented a quality assurance and quality control
program to ensure that the transport, sampling and analysis of all
samples is 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 2m in length, varying at
geological contacts to between 1.5m and 2.5m 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% passes a 10 mesh screen and a 250g
split is pulverized so that 85% 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-gm fire assay with an
AA finish and by gravimetric methods for assays over 10 ppm. Samples
are analyzed for silver and copper by ICP-ES after a four acid
digestion. For silver assays over 200 ppm, samples are analyzed using
ACME Labs 7AR method consisting of hot aqua regia digestion and ICP-ES
analysis. Copper assays over 10,000 ppm are re-analyzed using four acid
digestion with ICP-ES finish (ACME Labs 7TD method). ACME Labs are
independent from the Company.
Under the Company's QA-QC procedures, samples are submitted for
re-analysis 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
twentieth sample is a reference standard, ten samples above and below a
failed standard will be re-analyzed. 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, P.Geo., Vice-President Exploration of Ecuador Gold and
Copper Corp. is the qualified person, as defined by National Instrument
43-101, supervised the project field work, and is responsible for the
preparation of the technical information in this release.
Cautionary Note
The Company has not completed a preliminary economic assessment or
feasibility study of the Condor Gold Project under National Instrument
43-101, and there is no assurance that the exploration and subsequent
development operations of the Condor Gold Project will be economically
or technically viable.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider
(as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange)
accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SOURCE: Ecuador Gold and Copper Corp.