Camino Minerals (COR-V) Kenneth McNaughton CEO on possible IOCG discovery at Los Chapitos
Camino Minerals is off to a strong start at its newly-acquired 67-sq.-km Los Chapitos copper property in southern Peru, which shouldn’t be surprising given the roster of established explorers and company-builders on its management team.
Camino is the newest vehicle from a technical team — including Kenneth McNaughton, Ken Konkin, and Joseph Ovsenek — that was fundamental in industry success stories like Canplats Resources Silver Standard Resources (SSO-T) and, most recently, Pretivm Resources (PVG-T).
“We all had a lot of experience in Peru during the Silver Standard years, so we’re comfortable there, and we were privately looking for in-country opportunities. We’d basically been self-funding these regional, generative programs, and copper was certainly a priority,” recounts McNaughton, who serves as Camino’s president and CEO, during an interview.
“We were actually reviewing another project when a consultant we were dealing with pointed us in the direction of Los Chapitos. We completed the property review and had an agreement essentially hammered out on our first trip down there,” he adds.
The project lies among “rolling hills” with elevations ranging from 500 metres to 1,250 metres above sea level. It is crisscrossed by gravel roads and trails that connect back to the Pan American Highway en route to the cities of Chala and Tanaka.
Los Chapitos is strategically situated along the regional Treinta Libras structural lineament, which hosts the Mina Justa iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposit 100 km due northwest. Mina Justa is reported to contain a resource of 374 million measured and indicated tonnes averaging 0.71% copper.
“We started permitting literally the day after we nailed down our final agreement for the property,” McNaughton continues. “We identified our targets last July, and all of the subsequent work substantiated those initial ideas. The project is in that IOCG belt of rocks, and we’re patterning our exploration after Mina Justa. It’s uptrend from us, and has multiple phases of alteration that are pre-mineral. We’re seeing a lot of similarities at Los Chapitos.”
Camino acquired the project from a private Peruvian vendor for US$500,000 in staged cash payments, 500,000 shares, and a 1.5% net smelter returns (NSR) royalty payable up to a maximum of US$10 million.
Los Chapitos reportedly hosts “two separate mineralized trends.”
On the western side of the property, small-scale mining targeted copper-oxide mineralization from the Atajo zone in the 1950s. The company completed two chip sample lines across the middle of the area, which returned a length-weighted average of 2.10% copper and 9.4 grams silver, over 38 metres; and 1.57% copper and 3.5 grams silver across 64 metres.
Meanwhile, the Adriana and Katty zones outcrop around 6 km due east of Atajo along a prospective, 2.5-km trend.
“In terms of the potential system at Los Chapitos, we know we have some big breaks and six-to-seven mineralized kilometres on our northern trend,” McNaughton elaborates.
“The Vicky and Adriana areas stand out for their size potential, whereas the other targets appear to be smaller, shear-hosted, high-grade prospects that are related to magnetics at depth. The question for us is clearly related to stratigraphy. We seem to have the characteristics in terms of genesis,” he says.
Camino completed prospecting, mapping, and two rounds of geophysics before kick-starting an inaugural, reverse-circulation (RC) drill program to follow-up on mineralization at Adriana, where chip sampling returned a length-weighted average grade of 1.42% copper and 28.7 grams silver across 58 metres.
The company released maiden results on April 18, which were headlined by 106 metres grading 1.3% copper from 188 metres depth in hole CHR-002; and 44 metres of 0.86% copper from 28 metres depth in hole CHR-005.
The drilling was focused on “the down dip extension of Adriana’s surface mineralization,” as well as testing magnetic and induced polarization (IP) geophysical targets at depth. Camino reports both holes intersected “predominantly copper oxides.”
McNaughton explains that a decision was quickly made to mobilize diamond drill rigs to the site, which are expected to begin a followup program in early May. The company’s highest priority is likely the twinning of CHR-002.
“We’re seeing good oxide on surface, and we seem to have multiple horizons so there’s likely some stratigraphic and structural control. Those are the things we need to followup on and figure out,” McNaughton adds.
“Our team has proven that when we unlock the geology on a deposit things start to move quite fast. If things go well, we’d love to be in a position to put a resource estimate together by early next year.”
The company has 36.5 million shares outstanding for a $43 million press-time market capitalization.
On May 3, Camino announced it was essentially doubling a previously-announced private placement to $5 million via the issuance of 5.3 million units priced at 95¢ each. The units are composed of one share, and one purchase warrant with a strike price of $1.35 for 24 months. |
