First Drilling Already Underway!
At the end of May this year, the time had come: Canadian Cerro de Pasco Resources Inc. (CSE: CDPR; OTCPK: GPPRF; FWB: N8HP) reaped the fruits of years of work and received the right to use the giant polymetallic Quiulacocha project in Peru. The opportunity to exploit these enormous deposits is a truly transformative milestone for the small company. CPDR has, among other things thanks to substantial participation from mining legend Eric Sprott, the capital to begin work. And now it can really start, as it was announced today that the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines has approved the commencement of exploration work in a historic decision!
To emphasize this again: This is the first such permission in Peru ever that relates to a new mining exploration project within a tailings deposit! And Cerro de Pasco Resources wasted no time, immediately installed the first drilling rig and has already started the first phase of drilling on Quiulacocha!
Cerro de Pasco’s plan for Quiulacocha is to extract the metal still contained in the tailings while simultaneously advancing environmental remediation. Originally, the tailings came from the mining of more than 16 million tons of copper-silver-gold mineralization with historical grades of up to 10% Cu, 4 g/t Au and over 300 g/t Ag, and later from the mining of more than 58 million tons of zinc-lead-silver material with an average grade of 7.41% Zn, 2.77% Pb and 90.33 g/t Ag.
40 Drill Holes Should Be Sufficient for Official Resource
As a first step, the company wants to conduct exploratory drilling on the tailings. For this purpose, they have engaged the experts from Ingetrol Comercial S.A.C, who will carry out 40 drillings within about eight weeks to obtain around 1,000 tailings samples, enabling comprehensive data collection over the entire depth of the Quiulacocha tailings. Cerro de Pasco believes that this information will be sufficient to determine a 43-101 standard resource for Quiulacocha.
The necessary analyses of the samples taken, geochemical and metallurgical, will be carried out by Inspectorate Services Perú S.A.C., a Peruvian subsidiary of Bureau Veritas, and will not only enable the first resource estimate. They will also allow the company to determine the metallurgical methods for processing the Quiulacocha tailings.
In addition, CDPR has engaged the Peruvian experts from Geomain Ingenieros S.A.C. to conduct initial geophysical surveys. Geomain has already completed more than 9,000 meters of these surveys on the dry part of the Quiulacocha tailings, and a preliminary interpretation of the geophysical profiles created indicates that the tailings deposit is more than 40 meters deep at certain locations. This exceeds the company’s original expectations!
Conclusion: Today’s announcement from Cerro de Pasco Resources is truly historic, as it is the first drilling permit for a new mining exploration project over tailings in Peru’s history that was not granted in connection with a processing concession! And for Cerro de Pasco and its shareholders, extremely exciting times are now beginning as the company starts to determine the true value of the Quiulacocha tailings. In parallel, according to CEO Guy Goulet, the “master plan” for the entire resource of the Quiulacocha tailings is being developed. The market and CPDR shareholders can thus look forward to a steady, exciting news flow in the coming weeks and months!
