Southern Arc pulls long interval in Indonesia

VANCOUVER — Some investors seem to be regaining confidence in Indonesia: a long copper-gold porphyry intercept from Southern Arc Minerals’s (SA-V, SOACF-O) Selodong intrusive complex (SIC) prospect in the country gave the junior a healthy share price boost.

Southern Arc is using two drill rigs to probe three of 12 targets on the SIC. A drill collared at the northwest extremity of the Montong Botek target returned the longest intercept to date: hole 13 cut 577 metres grading 0.12% copper and 0.25 gram gold per tonne from surface. The lengthy intercept included 114 metres of 0.06% copper and 0.34 gram gold and 106.6 metres grading 0.18% copper and 0.3 gram gold.

The first 28 metres consisted of dacite and quartz diorite intrusive. The rest of the hole, to a final depth of 600 metres, was made up of polymictic breccia with variable amounts of mineralized quartz diorite clasts.

The hole was designed to test potential northwestern extensions of the copper-gold mineralization intersected in previous holes; its intercept extended the zone 150 metres. Previous results included 442.2 metres grading 0.28% copper and 0.42 gram gold from 34 metres depth in hole 1, 363.5 metres grading 0.3% copper and 0.51 gram gold from 33 metres in hole 3, and 416 metres of 0.21% copper and 0.31 gram gold from 2 metres in hole 4.

Hole 15, located 160 metres west of hole 13, tested further northwest extension and intersected two zones of lower-grade mineralization: 53 metres of 0.07% copper and 0.23 gram gold and 232 metres of 0.05% copper and 0.17 gram gold.

The three targets that Southern Arc is focusing on at present — Motong Botek, Blongas II, and

Blongas I — form a north-to northwest- trending structural corridor hosting porphyry mineralization roughly 280 metres long and 1,700 metres wide. Two drill rigs are focused on this area, with the goal of showing thatthe separateporphyry targets are in fact one system at depth.

A third drill rig, capable of drilling to depths of more than 1 km, is being used to test other targets within the SIC. For example, two holes tested the Belikat porphyry prospect, targeting anomalous geochemical and geophysical signatures coincident with extensive zones of outcropping quartz stockworks. Both holes hit phyllic and propylitic altered diorites and minor breccias hosting zones of quartz stockwork and low-grade copper-gold mineralization.

The SIC covers an area roughly 7 by 3 km. Newmont Mining (NCM-T, NEM-N) discovered porphyry copper-gold mineralization in the area in the mid-1990s. The SIC sits at the end of a 13-km-long northwest- trending structural corridor of mineralization and alteration wherein a series of dioritic intrusive phases and later diatreme breccias host copper and gold.

Southern Arc was the first Canadian junior since 1997 to establish a significant presence in Indonesia. When Newmont was forced to relinquish several of its exploration properties in order to develop its 45%-owned Batu Hijau copper-gold mine, Southern Arc took advantage, snapping up the 21-sq.-km Selodong prospect.

The company made a deal with Newmont for all its data on the project, including core samples, in exchange for a 2% net smelter royalty and right of first refusal should Southern Arcwant tobring in a joint-venture partner.

Southern Arc gained 15 or 25% on the news to close at 75. It has a 52-week trading range of 32-$2.48 and 71.4 million shares issued.