High-grade copper and silver project in Argentina announces largest exploration plan to date

The Argentine project, Lunahuasi, yielded some of the highest-grade copper, gold, and silver intersections drilled anywhere in the world.

NGEx Minerals announced its exploration plan and strategy for the largest drilling program to date at the high-grade copper, gold, and silver project Lunahuasi, located in San Juan, Argentina.

The field team is on-site preparing for the mobilization of the drilling rigs, with drilling expected to begin in early October.

The Phase 2 drilling program at Lunahuasi, completed in the first half of 2024, yielded some of the highest-grade copper, gold, and silver intersections drilled anywhere in the world and confirmed that Lunahuasi has unusually high grades and significant potential.

The drilled volume to date measures 400 meters by 900 meters by 960 meters and is open in all directions. The high-grade wells mark the outer limits of the current drilling pattern, with the northern boundary defined by several significant drill holes.

Exploration Objectives for 2024/2025

The upcoming Phase 3 campaign will be the largest program to date at Lunahuasi. The company’s goal is to make Lunahuasi one of the best new high-grade copper and gold deposits. The planned program will utilize six drilling rigs and is expected to reach a total of up to 20,000 meters, more than doubling the meters drilled to date.

The primary objective of the program is to grow the deposit through expansion drilling and provide sufficient closer-spaced data to develop an initial exploration target as a step towards an eventual resource estimate. An exploration target is an estimate of the quantity and potential grade, expressed as ranges, of a target for further exploration and is defined in National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101).

A planned magnetotelluric geophysical study will help the Company define possible extensions, including providing vectors toward the central part of the Lunahuasi system. Core scanning and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into our core logging and geological interpretation processes are being implemented to improve workflows for more routine tasks and give geologists more time for identification and interpretation.

Wojtek Wodzicki, President and CEO, commented: “The upcoming drilling program focuses on the growth of the Lunahuasi deposit, which remains open in all directions, and on continuing to advance our understanding of this unusually high-grade deposit.”

“Our interpretation, based on nearly 18,000 meters of completed drilling, is that we have only drilled a small part of the high-grade Lunahuasi deposit, and that what we have discovered so far is likely the peripheral part of a much larger mineralized system,” said the CEO.

Finally, he stated that “exploration over the past few years in the Vicuña District has shown that this unique area is capable of forming extremely large and remarkably high-grade deposits, and our geological team is confident that Lunahuasi will continue to surprise on the upside.”