A private Peruvian firm, Minera Senna EIRL, and Strait Gold, a Canadian mineral exploration company, have reached an agreement under which Strait Gold will have the option to acquire a 100% interest in the Caribe copper property located in Peru's Apurimac Region.
The property measuring 200-hectare is located about 500 km towards the southeast of Lima, inside the Andahuaylas-Yauri copper belt. Gravel and paved roads from the Cusco city can be used to access this property, which is situated approximately 80 km west of Strait Gold's Alicia Project. The Alicia Project lies in the same copper belt and has been optioned to Teck Resources.
The Andahuaylis-Yauri copper belt includes several copper-gold and copper deposits, including HudBay Mining’s Constancia copper project, First Quantum Minerals’ Haquira copper project, Xstrata's Las Bambas 60 km east of Caribe, Grupo Mexico's Los Chancas 35 km west of Caribe, and Antapaccay 100 km towards the southeast in which Xstrata will spend about US$5.7 billion for development.
At Caribe, the porphyry copper-molybdenum mineralization is related to extensively-brecciated quartz porphyrytic intrusives. Standard porphyry-style modification exist, including biotite and argillic modification, Secondary enrichment zones containing pyrite and covelite-chalcocite-bornite represent over 10% of the rock. In addition, prior assays of nine samples returned about 0.08% molybdenum and 0.82% copper in the primary sulphide zone as well as higher than 1% zinc, higher than 100 g/t silver and up to 4.5% copper in the secondary enrichment zones. The porphyry system expands over the property in a southeast- northwest orientation for over 1,000 m and is roughly 700 m wide.
Strait Gold’s geologists conducted an exploration mapping and sampling program. Totally, 11 composite chip samples were collected sporadically over 500 m. Highlights of the program comprise 1.405% molybdenum, 5.38% copper, 63 g/t silver and 0.334 g/t gold in one sample, and 1.055% molybdenum, 3.88% copper, 31.8 g/t silver and 0.387 g/t gold in another. Among the 11 samples, 5 returned higher than 3.3% copper.
Strait Gold’s President, Jim Borland informed that the drilling program at its Alicia Project is completely funded for 2012, and the company intends to finish all the initial work so as to commence its drilling operations to test for true potential at the Caribe property.