Anacortes Mining Corp announced that its Peruvian subsidiary, Aurifera Tres Cruces SA has begun drilling at its Tres Cruces gold project in the prolific Quiruvilca mining district in northern Peru.
Drilling contractor Remicsa Drilling SA is fully mobilized to site, Anacortes said in a statement, and ALS Global’s Peruvian subsidiary, ALS Perú SA is prepared to carry out the assay services for the drilling campaign.
The initial program will consist of between 3,000 and 4,000 meters of core drilling, which will include infill drilling of the known oxide resource, and metallurgical holes.
READ: Anacortes Mining awards contract for Phase 1 drilling campaign at Tres Cruces to Peru's Remicsa Drilling
Drilling will also test previous high-grade intercepts that ended in gold and silver mineralization, Anacortes said.
The company is budgeting between US$1.6 million and $2 million for the initial drilling campaign.
According to Anacortes, the infill drilling of the known oxide resource is intended to confirm the high-grade nature of the near surface mineralization which hosts 630,000 ounces of leachable gold at 1.28 grams per ton (g/t) gold, making it one of the highest-grade gold oxide development deposits globally.
A recently released Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the oxide resource demonstrated an after tax NPV of 5% of US$165.9 million at $1,700 gold.
Deeper exploration drilling will be conducted to test the depth potential of the known sulphide resource, which currently hosts 1.84 million ounces of gold in the indicated category at 1.84 g/t gold and 85,000 ounces of gold in the inferred category at 1.55 g/t gold, Anacortes added.
“There is exceptional potential below the known sulphide resource based on previously encountered high-grade drill intercepts, alteration patterns and breccias,” the company said in a statement.
One of the early holes in the program will test Hole RTC-255, where the bottom 173 meters of the hole had an average grade of 3.12 g/t gold. The hole, which ended in strong gold and silver mineralization, included 2 meters grading 79.7 g/t gold and 180.5 g/t silver from 196 metres to 198 metres down hole.
Tres Cruces is one of the highest-grade oxide deposits globally and hosts oxide plus sulphide indicated resources of 2,474,000 ounces at 1.65 g/t gold.
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