Metallum records high grades at San Sebastian

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Metallum Ltd (ASX: MNE) informed the market the exploration tunnel it is installing at the San Sebastian mine has encountered wide, high-grade copper and gold mineralisation.

San Sebastian is part of the El Roble copper project in Chile, where the company has mapped more than 60 kilometres of mineralised veins.

Work has commenced on installing an exploration tunnel along the length of the San Sebastian vein, with initial assays returning very high grades at good widths, including:

1.55 metres at 18.35 per cent copper;

1.5m at 11.65 per cent copper;

0.8m at 16.32 per cent copper and 6.37 grams per tonne gold; and

0.9m at 7.05 per cent copper and 3.75g/t gold.

Metallum entered an option to acquire the San Sebastian concession in August 2014.

It is currently mining and trucking material from the Panga Mine while awaiting a permit to commence similar operations at the nearby Paraguay Mine.

The company explained San Sebastian covers a major mineralised structure within the El Roble vein system.

The option agreement allows Metallum exclusive access to conduct exploration and assessment work prior to exercising the option.

As part of its assessment program, Metallum has commenced an exploration tunnel from the existing 1040 level footwall drive to intersect the interpreted position of the high-grade copper vein mapped and sampled in the upper 1090 level.

 

Plan view of the San Sebastian mine showing existing footwall drive
(1040 level) and newly installed exploration tunnel in relation to the
historic mine workings approximately 50m above. Source: Company
announcement

 

Metallum previously announced sampling from the vein in the 1090 level returned copper grades of up to 5.79 per cent over 2.2m and individual samples from remnant pillars up to 14.25 per cent copper.

“What we’ve encountered at San Sebastian is a high-grade vein between 0.5 metres and three metres in width along the total tunnel length of 25 metres to date,” Metallum managing director Zeff Reeves said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The results also reported some excellent gold grades, and this work justifies our decision to acquire the concession and work towards establishing an underground mining operation there as soon as possible.

“We’re stockpiling the material from the tunnel and the high-grade stockpile has assayed 22.5 per cent copper.

“Obviously we are pleased with how San Sebastian is looking, and we are targeting the wider portions of the vein beneath the historic workings which we are yet to reach.

“We’ve also submitted an application to operate there so we can commence mining and delivering material to the mill as soon as possible.”

Metallum has plans to continue the tunnel to the north along the vein underneath the historic mine area, which it expects to encounter in approximately 25m.

Once this tunnel has been installed, it is envisaged that it will provide immediate access to vertical stoping areas to be mined up to the 1090 level, as soon as a mining permit is granted.

Metallum has completed mine planning and permitting work for the San Sebastian mine, which includes a full geotechnical assessment, detailed planning, scheduling and budgeting in order to commence underground mining activities as soon as possible.

All permitting documentation has been submitted to Chilean authorities to obtain an operating permit to extract up to 5000 tonnes of copper bearing material per month.

Website: www.metallum.com.au