The surface rocks at Lucia contained plentiful green malachite and some chalcocite copper sulphides yielding sample averages of 2.17 per cent copper, with the highest reaching 5.35 per cent copper.
At the Solana prospect, 1km north of Lucia, old workings are evident across a 500m strike length, with 11 of the 14 samples taken demonstrating remarkable potential, averaging 3.44 per cent copper and peaking at grades of 8.89 per cent.
Although not as impressive as the Solana prospect, The Catolina prospect, on the northern boundary of Pan Asia’s grounds, returned 10 samples averaging 1.29 per cent copper with the highest values of 3.35 per cent.
In contrast, preliminary results from the Elodia prospect were less encouraging, but further analysis is planned.
When the data from the field program has been crunched, the company will be able to pinpoint drill targets ahead of a planned 2000m reverse circulation drilling campaign slated for early next year.
In a pre-emptive move, Pan Asia recently trebled its acreage at Rosario to expand its exploration potential and capture prospective northern strike extensions to the Solana and Lucia prospects in the Rosario Central and West Trends.
The company also locked away additional leases, including a corridor adjacent to Chile’s north-south energy grid and a 9 square kilometre flat zone suitable for solar installations, in what may be a tell-tale sign of how confident the company is about the project’s potential.
Rosario is showing all the early signs of being a Manto-style copper-silver deposit, a form of mineralisation known for significant copper deposits in the region.
A good example of such a deposit is the massive State-owned El Salvador mine, just 10km to the south of Pan Asia’s project, which has a resource of 4.7 million tonnes of contained copper grading 0.59 per cent.
As the crow flies, the project is also 100km from the El Salado copper ore processing plant and just 40km north of Codelco’s Porterillos copper smelter.
This is vital to the project’s future.
Until Rosario proves itself to be big enough for a standalone operation, its proximity to these operations opens up a lower capital investment opportunity to initially produce a concentrate that could be hauled to a third-party processing facility.
The latest results combined with recent pre-emptive moves to lock up more land would appear to suggest the company is becoming increasingly confident of finding a sizeable deposit at Rosario.
With copper prices hovering just below US$10,000 (A$15,540) per tonne and global supply starting to diminish against the rising demand from green technologies, any big new copper discovery right now would likely be jumped on by a global mining company.
Pan Asia will be hoping to be that company and Rosario, that discovery.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au