More Cu-Au porphyry mineralisation intersected at Copper Ridge

Earlier this morning, our Ecuadorian gold and copper Investment Titan Minerals (ASX:TTM) delivered the remaining results from its maiden drilling campaign at the Copper Ridge copper porphyry prospect, within its Linderos project.

With very promising results from the first two assays returning long intercepts of cu porphyry mineralisation - we were very keen to see what the remaining six assays reveal.

So how did they go?

All holes intersected long intervals of copper-gold porphyry mineralisation, albeit low grade.

However, there was no ‘company maker’ assay result in this batch. Perhaps the best two results this time were:

Hole CRDD22-006:

• Overall 558m grading 0.2% Cu Eq (ie copper equivalent) from surface incl:
  • 72m grading 0.4% Cu Eq from 21m, and
  • 51m grading 0.4% Cu Eq from 373m

Hole CRDD22-004:

• 344m grading 0.2% Cu Eq from 38m incl:
  • 86m grading 0.3% Cu Eq from 196m

All the results are tabulated below.

With all the assays now returned, our overall take is that the campaign has confirmed a substantial copper-gold porphyry system from near surface - a good result for a maiden campaign.

The system remains open, both laterally and at depth, and it is encouraging to note that 6 of the 8 holes were mineralised to the end of hole (meaning that it is very likely more mineralisation would’ve been encountered if a bigger rig was used).

The low copper equivalent grades implies that the core of the porphyry has not yet been found. However, whilst we’d love to see CuEq closer to 1% (as is more typical in Australia), lower grade porphyry systems can still be economic if at scale. For instance, the $700M-capped SolGold is advancing its Alpala porphyry deposit in Northern Ecuador, which contains a global resource of 3.2Bt grading 0.49% Cu Eq for 9.9Mt of copper, 21.7Moz gold and 92Moz silver - BHP and Newcrest are the biggest shareholders.

What’s next?

TTM are keen to return to drilling Copper Ridge. The next campaign will hunt for the “earlier-phase, higher-grade copper-gold porphyry mineralisation” and will utitlise 3D modelling to help vector new drill targets. This is more likely in 2H23, as there are analysis of geochemical and spectral data, as well as a possible IP survey to run, to help discern these targets.

We are also expecting assay results from the Meseta Gold prospect (also within the Linderos project) later this month.

Finally, we’re keen to see an update on the Dynasty project (which hosts a 2.1Moz non-JORC gold resource), perhaps in the current quarter,