NGEx Resources Inc announced the start of drilling on its South American copper and gold projects. Drilling has started at the Josemaria copper and gold porphyry project located in San Juan province, Argentina and will start at Los Helados and other projects in the region a little later in the season.
Drilling on the South American projects is expected to continue until at least May 2012. Four drill rigs are currently working at Josemaria with up to four more rigs scheduled to be added in the coming weeks. The drilling announced today is part of the Company's previously announced 2011 to 2012 exploration program.
Josemaria hosts an Inferred resource of 460 million tonnes at a grade of 0.39% copper and 0.30 grams per tonne gold. The Company is planning to drill up to approximately 15,000 meters at Josemaria project during the current campaign. This drill program is designed to provide sufficient data to allow for the conversion of this resource to the Indicated category and to test for possible extensions to the deposit which remains open along strike to the north and south of the high grade central corridor.
Josemaria is one of several large copper and gold systems including the Company's Los Helados and Filo del Sol projects, located on a large contiguous land package that the company holds in Chile's Region 3 and adjacent San Juan Province Argentina. Los Helados, Josemaria and Filo del Sol are all part of a joint venture in which the Company holds 60% and JOGMEC holds 40%. Each party funds its pro rata share of expenditures.
In addition to the drill program at Josemaria, the Company is planning a significant drill program on the nearby Los Helados copper and gold porphyry project, where previous drilling has identified a large copper and gold porphyry system. Mineralization at Los Helados is open in several directions and many current drill holes bottomed in mineralization. Drilling at Los Helados is expected to begin in January.
Filo del Sol is a very large and complex high sulfidation system with similarities to both the Pascua Lama and Veladero deposits. Previous drilling focused on an area of shallow copper oxide and deeper sulfide copper mineralization in the southern part of the area. This year drilling is planned at Filo del Sol to follow up significant gold intercepts encountered during previous drilling and to better define the copper oxide potential. Timing of drilling at the Filo del Sol project will depend on progress at the high priority Los Helados and Josemaria projects.
The proposed drilling listed above is the Company's best current estimate of the number of meters required to test targets and define resources. The actual number of meters drilled will vary depending on results and actual drilling rates.
