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Fitzroy Minerals (TSXV: FTZ)(US-OTC: FTZFF) has extended broad, shallow copper mineralization along the Tenorita trend at its Buen Retiro project in Chile as it advances towards an initial resource and prefeasibility study before production in 2028.
Highlights include hole BRT-DDH072, which cut 111.9 metres grading 0.97% copper from 21.1 metres depth, including 18 metres at 1.59% copper from 84 metres, Fitzroy said on Thursday. Hole BRT-DDH070 returned 147.7 metres grading 0.41% copper from 26.3 metres, including 47 metres at 0.88% copper from 113 metres.
“Buen Retiro continues to deliver excellent results and several of the fifteen drill holes reported today reflect wide zones of mineralization in leachable material close to surface,” President and CEO Merlin Marr-Johnson said in the release. “Note that the best drill hole reported today, drill hole 72, is to the east of drill hole 70, confirming consistent shallow mineralization for about 300 metres across the widest part of the Tenorita area.”
The latest assays build on a series of strong results this year as Fitzroy works toward a first resource and economic study at the brownfield project, where it is evaluating a heap-leach operation that could feed nearby solvent extraction-electrowinning facilities. The company signed a letter of intent in April with listed Chilean miner Pucobre outlining a potential joint development pathway that includes access to an existing processing plant about 90 km away.
Four rigs
Shares in Fitzroy Minerals gained 5.3% to 40¢ Canadian apiece on Friday morning in Toronto, giving the company a market value of about C$130 million ($92 million). The stock has traded between 24¢ and 73¢ over the past 52 weeks.
The prefeasibility study is due by mid-next year, according to an earn-in agreement with current equal owners Pucobre and private mining partnership Sociedad Contractual Minera Buen Retiro. The likely eventual partnership is to be 70% Fitzroy, 30% Pucobre, they’ve said.
Fitzroy has four rigs turning at Buen Retiro and the team aims to complete the drill-out of the 1.7-km-long Tenorita trend in August. The project is about 1,000 km north of Santiago and 60 km south of Copiapó in Chile’s Atacama Region. It covers 132 sq. km in the Punta del Cobre iron oxide copper-gold belt and hosts the past-producing Manto Negro mine.
Candelaria
Manto Negro produced 34.4 million lb. copper between 2005 and 2009 under Pucobre. It’s near Lundin Mining’s (TSX: LUN) Candelaria mine, which produced 145,000 tonnes of copper last year.
Fitzroy plans another 9,000 metres of drilling this year to upgrade the Tenorita zone to measured, indicated and inferred resources for a prefeasibility study, outline inferred resources elsewhere on the property and test new exploration targets. The company has completed 78 diamond drill holes for a total of 13,036 metres since the start of February.
Assays in March included 384 metres grading 0.23% copper from four metres in hole BRT-DDH045, confirming a large Candelaria-style mineralized system, while June results returned 59 metres grading 1.73% copper, including 12 metres at 5.39% copper, strengthening the near-surface resource target.
