Apoquindo: fast and focused in South America (June 19, 2008)

Vancouver – Apoquindo Minerals (AQM-V) is on a mission.

The junior exploration company, which only debuted on the TSX Venture board in late 2006, is focused on South America. The plan is to first target leachable copper deposits and then explore for properties with size gold and copper size potential. In a year and a half it has picked up three properties, drilled almost 28,000 metres, and raised over $14 million through private placements.

It now has four drill rigs turning on its two Chilean projects, which are within 18 km of each other and so are collectively called the Apoquindo copper oxide project. Expectations are high that the company’s seasoned group of managers and geologists can find another mine in the mining-rich Antofagasta coastal range of northern Chile.

The Elenita deposit is 110 km northeast of Antofagasta in Chile’s Region III. The site has been owned by the Cespedes family since 1959. Between 1960 and 1990 the property saw low-scale production from high-grade zones.

In 1993 Princeton Mining optioned the property and completed over 19,000 metres of reverse circulation drilling. The drill program resulted in a historic resource estimate of 9.9 million tons grading 1.12% copper. A preliminary economic analysis of Elenita concluded a copper heap-leach, SXEW plant processing 1 million tonnes of ore annually from an open pit mine was not economical.

Princeton dropped the Elenita option in 1997; it sat empty until 2004 when the Cespedes family once again started mining high grade mantos. Average production is 1,500 tonnes per month at an average grade of 2 to 3% copper.

Apoquindo signed an option agreement to earn into Elenita from the Cespedes for $15 million total, payable over four years, plus a 1% net smelter royalty.

Mineralization at Elenita is manto type. The copper mantos are between 1 and 15 metres wide and mineralization is present in copper oxides such as brochantite, atacamite, chrisocole, and malachite to depth of roughly 80 metres. A leachable secondary enrichment zone follows, mineralized with chalcosite; below the enrichment zone bornite and covellite are present to depths down to 300 metres.

In twinning old holes at Elenita, Apoquindo is finding good correlation between historic results and new data. Intercepts include 1.28% copper over 17 metres from 29 metres depth in hole 2, 1.52% copper over 14 metres from 50 metres downhole in hole 3, 0.41% copper over 55 metres in hole 5, and 0.65% copper over 19 metres followed by 1.73% copper over 11 metres in hole 7.

Moreover, the company has extended most mantos to the north and encountered several high-grade feeder zones consistent with the geological model. The best result to date from the project came from hole 31: 3.3% copper over 29 metres from 32 metres depth, including 5 metres of 7.13% copper.

Just 18 km south, the Madrugador concessions totals 817 hectares and surrounds the Sierra Valenzuela copper deposit, now held by Cia Minera Milpo and home to a historic resource of 31.4 million tonnes averaging 1.18% copper. Some of that deposit continues onto the Madrugador property, which hosts a historic resource of 3.1 million tons grading 1.18% copper.

Apoquindo geologists think the manto-type copper mineralization of Sierra Valenzuela continues further into Madrugador, underneath the unconsolidated cover to the east, north, and west. As such the company’s plan at Madrugador was to drill the down-dip potential extending from Sierra Valenzuela and results to date have verified the historic grade.

Hole 54 hit 46 metres grading 1.26% copper from 196 metres depth. Hole 3 returned 0.24% copper over 16 metres from near surface followed by 86 metres grading 1.33% copper from 97 metres depth. Hole 8 cut 18 metres of 0.5% copper followed by 40 metres of 1.12% copper. And hole 14 cored three good intercepts: 19 metres of 1.48% copper, 21 metres of 2.49% copper, and 61 metres of 1.65% copper.

Recent drilling has also identified a new manto some 300 metres northwest of the main zone, which has been dubbed the Brac II zone. The three best results from the new zone are 1.2% copper over 23 metres from 16 metres depth in hole 29, 1% copper over 18 metres from 39 metres downhole in hole 25, and 2% copper over 5 metres from 185 metres depth in hole 24. Based on seven drill holes the manto is 10 to 30 metres thick, still open at depth and along strike. The corresponding geochemical copper anomaly is more than 400 metres long.

The company’s third property is the recently-acquired Huarman gold-silver prospect in the department of Ancash, Peru. The bulk-tonnage prospect is in an area with a long-standing history of mining. Since 1980 Huarman has seen limited polymetallic production by artisan miners from two veins El Rey and El Principe as well as from the San Juan open pit and underground operation.

Both the vein-type and disseminated mineralization are hosted in silicified and phyllically altered diatreme breccia and andesite. The favourable breccia at Huarman is some 500 metres in diameter but the site has not seen any exploratory drilling.

A sampling program from surface and underground workings returned an average 1.4 grams gold per tonne and 36 grams silver per tonne. The best continuous intercepts from underground sampling were 52 metres of 1 gram gold and 24 metres of 4 grams gold.