Strait Minerals (SRD-V) optionee Teck drops Alicia property
Feb 13, '14 - NR
Teck Minerals Peru SAC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Teck Resources Ltd., has notified Strait Minerals Inc. that it does not intend to exercise its option to earn an interest in Strait's 100-per-cent-owned Alicia copper property in Peru. In 2013, Teck Peru financed a 10-hole drill program at Alicia under an option/joint venture agreement with the company. That program intersected copper mineralization in nine of 10 holes, including one step-out hole to test the porphyry system under cover about 150 metres west of the outcropping porphyry. This extended the extent of known porphyry mineralization to approximately one kilometre along strike. The only hole not to intersect porphyry mineralization was a 500-metre step-out to the east which was terminated at 61 metres in barren limestone. Selected results of the drill program were reported in the company's news release of Jan. 21, 2014.
"Teck Peru mainly tested the outcropping porphyry at Alicia and added two step-out holes," said Strait president Jim Borland. "Highly anomalous copper values from soil sampling where the porphyry appears to continue under cover east and west of the outcropping area are primary targets for future work. These soil anomalies coincide with geophysical anomalies, and both soil and geophysical anomalies extend beyond the area tested by this drill program."
As at Dec. 31, 2013, Teck Peru had spent approximately $2.9-million at Alicia, which includes a 10-per-cent administration fee paid to Strait to manage the work program. Work included mapping and sampling of a polymetallic zone approximately 1,500 metres south of the outcropping porphyry. Rock sampling of this polymetallic zone returned encouraging results, the highlights of which included 15.12 per cent zinc, 989 grams per tonne silver, greater than 30 per cent lead, 3.27 g/t gold and 5.8 per cent copper (see news release of Dec. 10, 2012). This polymetallic zone was not drill tested by Teck Peru and will be the subject of future work.
Teck also acquired nine million shares of Strait from treasury at a total cost of $1.26-million in two private placements and the exercise of warrants. As a result, Teck holds a 14.5-per-cent equity interest in Strait.
Drilling by Strait in 2011, prior to optioning the property to Teck Peru, tested several outcropping skarn zones along the contact of the porphyritic intrusives with surrounding limestone. That program intersected continuous mineralization across 600 metres, east to west (see National Instrument 43-101 technical report dated April 15, 2011, and filed April 26, 2011, on SEDAR). Best results from that drilling included 94.3 metres (true width) of mixed skarn and porphyry material in hole ALC10-08 grading 0.33 per cent copper and 0.04 gram per tonne gold, and 134.0 metres of mixed skarn and porphyry material in hole ALC11-16 grading 0.29 per cent copper and 0.03 g/t gold.
Alicia lies within the 150-kilometre-long Andahuaylas-Yauri copper belt where several large copper projects are at the development stage. Most notable of these are Glencore-Xstrata's Las Bambas project approximately 40 km west of Alicia and HudBay Mining's Constancia project approximately 60 km east of Alicia. The company also holds an option to earn a 100-per-cent interest in the Caribe property approximately 80 km west of Alicia and within the same copper belt.
All of the company's exploration programs are prepared by, or prepared under the supervision of, Dr. Roger Moss, PGeo, who serves as the qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 and is a director of the company. Dr. Moss has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release. |
