Golden Arrow Resources Corp (TSX-V:GRG, OTCQB:GARWF) has acquired the Pietro iron-oxide copper gold (IOCG) project in Chile for US$3.35 million in cash and said it will now advance this strategically located asset to pre-feasibility.
The 100% interest in the property, which includes 18,448 hectares of concessions in the Atacama region, was bought from Sumitomo Metal Mining Chile Ltda (SMM Chile).
"There is an incredible opportunity here for Golden Arrow and our investors," said Brian McEwen, Golden Arrow's vice-president of exploration and development. "There has been little, or no work done on the project since 2014. Since that time the prices of copper, gold, iron and especially cobalt have all increased greatly. Previous evaluations were based largely on copper only. Our initial review indicates each of these could play an important role in the overall potential economics. We also identified several targets within the 18,000 hectares which will be the focus of our initial exploration."
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Joseph Grosso, the firm's CEO, added: "We accomplished this acquisition by taking advantage of the strong financial position that resulted from our last successful transaction. In fact, using the leverage from Golden Arrows' SSR Mining Inc. shareholding from November when our proposal was accepted to closing, saw an increase of approximately $7.00/ share from $19.00 to $26.00 which completely covered the purchase cost of the project, leaving us still with a strong cash position."
"Now our technical team will try to do as they did with our Chinchillas Project in Argentina and advance a strategically located exploration project to pre-feasibility," Grosso added.
Nearly US$15 million has been spent on exploration at San Pietro by previous owners, including over 34,000 meters (m) of drilling, over 1,000 surface samples and multiple geophysical surveys.
Of the five main target areas, Rincones has been the primary focus, with multiple drill holes returning assays with significant copper, gold and cobalt values, including 28m (from 236m downhole) averaging 1.14% copper, 0.12 grams per ton (g/t) gold, and 335 parts per million (ppm) cobalt.
Golden Arrow's 2022 work program will move toward resource delineation at Rincones while advancing the four additional targets and other areas.
For example, at the Radiss Norte target, 2.7 kilometers (km) north of Rincones, a hole hit 306 ppm cobalt over 29m starting at surface.
The asset lies 100 km north of Copiapo in an active mining district that is home to all the major IOCG deposits in Chile.
There is excellent mining infrastructure and the property is immediately adjacent to the west of Capstone Mining's Santo Domingo mine development project and 10 km northeast of Mantos Copper's Mantos Verde mine.
Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com