Alien Metals Limited (LON:UFO) said its planned drilling programme at the Donovan 2 copper-gold project in Mexico remains little changed after reviewing new data.
The exploration company has been given the technical data from the drilling programme undertaken by Capstone Mining Corp, which was considering taking a stake in the project, and has reviewed it all, other than the drill core, which it will review in due course.
READ Alien Metals says Capstone Mining pulls out of Donovan 2 copper-gold project
Alien said its original drilling plan remains little changed because Capstone’s drilling consisted of single holes in different locations that targeted very specific geophysical targets while Alien’s plan is to carry out a more systematic ‘heel to toe’ style of drilling across geophysical and geological targets, to ensure each target area is properly covered by drilling with no gaps.
Alien is finalising an initial 4-to-6 hole programme for about 800m to target the Los Alamos and Cerro de la Cruz targets once a review of the current drilling permit status is completed, the mobile metal iron (MMI) results are received and reprocessing of the geophysics are completed to ensure the company has used every available piece of data to maximise confidence in the drilling programme.
#Alien is pleased to provide an update on the review and planning for the next phase of exploration on the Company’s Donovan 2 Copper-Gold project in Mexico. Read the full announcement here: #AIM #UFO https://t.co/dClvBeOHLG pic.twitter.com/D1DIMmqiiA
— ALIEN METALS (@AlienMetals) July 14, 2021
The company is considering getting the combined geophysical data generated at Donovan 2 to date by all parties reprocessed and reinterpreted by an independent group specialising in geophysical interpretation who have experience of Mexican geology and geophysical responses as well. A comparison of geophysical work is already comparing the San Nicolas project to Donovan 2 with possible synergies being used as targeting tools for these phases of work such as the MMI programme initial target area.
“In our view, Donovan 2 is still a highly under-explored asset and one that, we believe, offers a great deal of exploration potential. Following the recent termination of the earn-in agreement with Capstone Mining we have been hard at work reviewing the exploration they undertook, as well as reviewing all of our own historic exploration work. We are now finalising the next stage exploration programs for the project,” said Bill Brodie Good, the chief executive officer and technical director of Alien Metals.
“We believe that some of the geophysical targets at Donovan 2, along with the geological target at Los Alamos, have not been adequately tested. Along with reinterpretation of the geophysical data and surface geochemical work, we want to ensure we have optimised target generation to follow up with our systematic maiden drilling programme. We are undertaking a review and validation of Capstone’s drilling, which could provide more information to use in target generation. The recent new samples taken by Alien from the old water well at Los Alamos further reinforces our belief in this project and its potential,” he added.