Pan Global Resources Inc. (
TSX: V.PGZ,
OTCQB: PGNRF,
Forum) is a name now familiar to Stockhouse investors. First introduced in a full-length
feature article from August 28, 2018, that earlier piece described Pan Global as a junior copper exploration and development company, with its operations focused in the copper-rich Andalucia mining province, located in Spain.
The Company’s flagship property is its Águilas Project. Águilas features IOCG geology, a style of mineralisation associated with some of the world’s most prolific copper mining operations, such as the giant Olympic Dam mine. Management is particularly enthused with the potential of two large fault structures, the Zumajo lead-zinc-silver trend and the Torrubia copper trend. The company has also recently added the Escacena Project where work has only just begun on two large anomalies with potential for massive sulphide associated copper and other metals.
Recent exploration work at Águilas included soil sampling, surface sampling and rock-grab samples along a 5-kilometer section of the Zumajo trend. Previous work on the Torrubia copper trend had identified two large copper anomalies. When the Company mapped out its maiden drilling program at Águilas, management was intent on testing both Torrubia copper targets as well as the Zumajo lead-zinc-silver trend.
The initial drilling was a 20-hole, 2,944 meter drill program, with 7 widely-spaced holes devoted to testing copper mineralization and 13 holes focusing on the lead-zinc-silver. On May 13, 2019, Pan Global released the assay results: encountering high-grade mineralization in multiple holes, along both trends.
Highlights include:
- 16.85% Pb, 1.9% Zn and 85 g/t Ag (22.15% Pb Eq) over 0.6 meters
- 2.65% Cu, 0.125% Co and 3 g/t Ag over 0.8 meters
To burrow deeper into these results for investors, Stockhouse went to the source. We asked Tim Moody, President and CEO of Pan Global to provide greater detail with respect to these drilling numbers and put these results into context with respect to the Company’s overall operations.
For readers new to Pan Global, please introduce the Company.
Pan Global Resources is actively engaged in two large size, multi-target, multi-metal exploration projects located in Anadalucia in southern Spain, approximately 300 kilometers south of Madrid. Andalucia is Spain’s most important mining region and has a significant mining history.
The Águilas Project in northern Andalucia is comprised of 16,333 hectares and has two known zones of mineralization: an Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) style target and a Lead-Zinc-Silver (Pb-Zn-Ag) mineralization target.
The Escacena Project, comprised of approximately 2,200 hectares, is located along strike from three large current and past-producing copper mines in the Iberian Pyrite Belt. The property has two high priority gravity targets at Canada Honda and the La Romana where the target is volcanic hosted massive sulphide style copper, zinc, silver and gold mineralisation.
The projects benefit from excellent infrastructure and year-round access. In addition to its strong project portfolio, Pan Global has assembled experienced and successful board and management teams that are committed to creating shareholder value and building on high quality mineral resource opportunities. The company is fully committed to operating safely and with respect to the communities and environment where we operate.
North American investors may not be familiar with the deep copper-mining history in Spain. Please provide further information here.
Copper mining in Spain can be traced back to the pre-Roman Empire, making the country one of the birthplaces for mining. Today, Spain is considered one of the world’s leading jurisdictions for copper production and continues to host a robust mining industry. Some of the more important mine operators in the Iberian Peninsula include Lundin, Matsa (Trafigura and Mubadala), First Qantum and Atalaya’s Rio Tinto Mine.
What makes Spain so attractive to a company like Pan Global is not only its strong mining pedigree but also its well-developed infrastructure, clear legislative framework and constructive fiscal regime. Spain, and in particular, Andalucia, has a track record or converting exploration success to successful mining operations.
Even after all these years, there is still more copper mineralization in this district, as well as other commercially mineable ores. What attracted Pan Global to the Águilas property, and what are its dimensions?
Covering over 16,000 hectares, the Águilas property provides “district scale” exploration potential in northern Andalucia, Spain. Pan Global is currently conducting extensive work in two major cross-cutting fault trends in the property. The >20 kilometer northwest oriented Zumajo trend includes Pb-Zn-Ag style mineralisation and the Torrubia trend includes IOCG style mineralisation along a 16 kilometer northeast oriented trend. The area contains abundant evidence of ancient mining and shows geological features in common with other IOCG districts.
Although to date exploration has focused on the two major fault structures, there are numerous high priority targets have already been identified in the property and additional mineral rights are expected to be granted this year.
With multiple mineralized trends at Águilas, there is a lot for investors to digest. First of all, please provide greater information on the Torrubia copper trend.
The Torrubia trend is a northeast oriented elongate fault or breccia zone with intense IOCG style alteration and high grade copper mineralisation in boulders and occasional out crop, and evidence of ancient mining works over several kilometres of strike. Pan Global has completed the first detailed exploration on the trend and the drill results for the first 7 wide spaced drill holes were reported recently confirming potential for a strongly mineralised system. Less than one third of the trend has been systematically sampled or explored so-far.
On May 24th, Pan Global was very pleased to announce it had gained access to approximately 1.9 kilometers of strike in the North of the Torrubia copper trend. This untested area of the soil copper anomaly includes the widest and strongest part of the copper target which has produced rock grab samples of up to 8.4% Cu in boulders and 1.2% Cu in outcrop. The recently completed drilling immediately south of this area shows copper increasing towards the north. Pan Global is looking forward to drilling the target in 2019 with 5 drill holes planned.
(Photo of a Roman Age Tunnel in the Escacena Property. Click image to enlarge)
It’s not unusual for mineral-rich geology to host separate mineralized trends. What is the nature of the lead-zinc-silver geology along the Zumajo trend?
The Northwest oriented Zumajo Pb-Zn-Ag mine trend runs over 20 kilometers long. Historical workings from mines operated along this trend from the late 1800’s to 1958 extracting lead and silver. These are mainly shallow pits and mine shafts, with the deepest being approximately 120 meter depth. Zinc mineralisation at these mines is not well known since zinc was of little interest during the previous phase of mining and had very little subsequent exploration. The mineralisation incudes coarse galena and sphalerite within a steeply dipping zone of mainly quartz-carbonate breccia and vein style mineralisation. The mineralisation may be concentrated at fault junctions or bends in the structure. There is evidence of similar style mineralisation in parallel structures that remain to be explored.
In 2018, Pan Global conducted soil sampling and several lines of IP geophysics along a 5 km section of Zumajo trend and delineated two large lead-zinc-silver targets. Surface sampling returned very high values up to 8.9% Pb, 0.97% Zn, 17.5g/t Ag and 672ppm Cu in soils and up to >20% Pb, 20.7% Zn, 235g/t Ag and 12.75% Cu in rock grab samples from mine dumps and occasional outcrop.
Now let’s focus on the maiden drilling results. The drill holes on the copper target appear to be quite far apart. That’s a bit of a gamble on a maiden drilling program. How confident was management that you would hit mineralization on a high percentage of these holes?
Similar to other large IOCG deposits, the challenge is how to zero in on where the copper is best concentrated with in such a large zone of alteration and breccia.
The company completed 7 drill holes along a 5.2 kilometer segment of the Torrubia Cu trend. The drill holes were designed to provide the first test beneath two large soil copper anomalies with high copper grades indicated in boulders and occasional outcrop at surface. The drill holes were also intended to provide information on the nature of the mineralisation to help guide future drilling. Each drill hole encountered mineralisation, which is encouraging at this early stage and shows copper grade increasing to the north and at depth.
Please expand upon the copper intercepts and inform investors on the Company’s next steps in building upon these results.
The drill holes on the Torrubia trend confirmed wide intervals of intense multi-stage breccia and hematite-quartz-carbonate alteration over 40 to 90m wide intervals. The breccia is anomalous in Cu in each drill hole. The best results include the northernmost drill hole TOR-001 with 16m @ 0.30% Cu, 30.5 ppm Co, 0.6 g/t Ag, 0.05 g/t Au, including high grade intercepts of 2.65% Cu, 125 ppm Co and 3 g/t Ag over 0.8m and 1.65% Cu, 240 ppm Co and 2.1 g.t Ag over 0.7m.
The drilling on the Torrubia trend shows the breccia is anomalous in copper over several kilometres of strike and provides clear indications of a potentially strong mineralized system, with drill hole TOR-001 demonstrating potential for high copper grades. We have recently been granted access to drill test the northern extension of the Torrubia trend including approximately 1.9 kilometres of strike with the strongest and widest soil copper anomaly that is untested. An additional 5 drill holes are planned in the North of the trend as soon as possible. We believe the exploration potential remains significant.
The lead-zinc-silver mineralization produced even stronger numbers, up to 22.15% Pb Eq. What are your future plans here?
In April 2019, a total of 13 wide-spaced drill holes were completed along a 4.2 km section of the Zumajo trend. The drill holes tested a combination of lead-zinc-silver soil geochemistry, IP geophysics anomalies and down-dip or along strike from the historical mine workings at San Juan, San Rafael, San Luis and San Cayetano.
Significant drill results are reported along approximately 1.5 km of strike extending from the San Juan, San Rafael and Dos Centimos mine workings. This includes high grade polymetallic mineralization (Pb, Zn, Ag ± Cu, Au) within an 8 to 20m wide, steeply dipping zone of multi-stage breccia and veins. High grade intervals include up to 16.85% Pb, 1.9% Zn, 85 g/t Ag (22.15% PbEq or 815 g/t AgEq) over 0.6 meters in drill hole VAC-006. The drilling also indicates that Pb and Ag mineralization near the San Luis and San Cayetano mine workings is open along strike and at depth.
Scope exists to considerably extend the high grade polymetallic mineralization on the Zumajo trend at depth and along strike. The drilling is very wide-spaced at this stage with distances of 450 to 680m separating the highest grade intercepts in drill holes VAC-002, 005 and 006. A gap of >1.1km with very little exploration separates hole VAC-006 to the nearest drill hole to the East at San Luis.
The drill holes on the Zumajo trend show that the high grade Pb, Zn and Ag mineralisation extends beyond the historical mine workings and remains open in all directions. The next round of drilling on the Zumajo trend will focus on further testing the continuity, grade and extent of the polymetallic mineralisation and if successful, progress to resource delineation. Given the wide spacing and shallow depth of the drill holes to-date, it is highly unlikely we have intercepted the best grades and widths. The diagram below shows the drill hole results in long-section.
(Click image to enlarge)
After assessing these drill results, what will be the Company’s highest priority at Águilas, the Torrubia copper mineralization, or the Zumajo Pb-Zn-Ag trend?
Both targets offer good potential and we intend to progress both in parallel at this stage. The scale of the target on the Torrubia copper trend remains very attractive and a significant drill result in the next round of drilling would result in us directing more resources to this area. Most of the Zumajo trend has not been explored and offers potential for several ore bodies along the same trend.
The Company’s second property, its Escacena Project is also prospective for copper exploration. Please provide investors with more information here.
The Escacena project is in the Iberian Pyrite Belt, which is the foremost volcanic hosted massive sulphide district in the world in terms of the number of mines, size of the ore deposits and amount of metal produced, this includes copper, zinc and other metals such as lead, tin, silver and gold. Many of the ore deposit discoveries in the Iberian Pyrite Belt in the last 40 years were found by drilling gravity targets or a combination of gravity and electrical geophysics targets. The main targets at Escacena include two large gravity anomalies at Cañada Honda and La Romana along strike from the large Aznalcollar and Los Frailes mines and Las Cruces Mine.
Wide spaced drilling on the La Romana gravity anomaly by Exxon in the 1980’s confirmed volcanic-hosted massive sulphide style copper mineralisation over a 1.3 kilometer strike length, including a best interval of best interval of 4.7m @ 2.94% Cu and mineralisation open along strike and down dip. The Cañada Honda gravity target is untested and on the same geological trend as the Aznalcollar mine just 5 kilometers to the East. Drilling by Exxon confirmed copper and gold mineralisation on thrust faults up-dip from the Cañada Honda gravity anomaly, including 3m @ 1.5% Cu, 1g/t Au and 15g/t Ag.
New geophysics results show strong IP geophysics anomalies coincident with each of the gravity targets and consistent with potential massive or semi-massive sulphide. Pan Global is planning additional geophysics work on each target and a multi drill hole program.
What are Pan Global’s exploration plans over the balance of 2019?
Preparations have commenced for the first 2 shallow drill holes and additional geophysics at Escacena, with drilling on deeper geophysics targets expected in the second half of 2019. In the Águilas project, highest priority is drilling 4 to 5 drill holes copper target on the northern extension of the Torrubia trend and followed by further 8 to 10 drill holes testing continuity and grade along strike from the San Rafael and Dos Centimos mine workings on the Zumajo trend. Regional exploration, including surface sampling and mapping on other targets in both project areas will also continue aimed at prioritising targets elsewhere in both the Escacena and Águilas Project areas. The company is continuing to review other opportunities.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.