BHP to resume work on Taca-Taca

Drilling is set to resume at the Taca-Taca porphyry project in Argentina’s Salta province.

BHP Minerals, the operator, can earn an initial 60% interest from Corriente Resources (CTQ-T) by spending US$3.6 million on exploration and paying US$4.8 million by Oct. 31, 2000.

In the late fall of 1996, BHP tested a large coincident copper-gold anomaly with four widely spaced drill holes. Partial results from the first two holes showed a thick, leached zone capping an extensive, low-grade, primary mineralized system, with evidence of a higher-grade enriched zone overlying the primary zone.

Results for the remaining two holes of that program were recently released.

Hole 3 was completed to a depth of 520 metres, intersecting 296 metres of leached mineralization grading 0.02% copper and 0.15 gram gold per tonne from near surface.

The enriched zone was encountered at a depth of 300-328 metres, from which were returned 28 metres grading 0.75% copper and 0.19 gram gold. From 328-520 metres, the primary zone yielded intervals of: 124 metres grading 0.44% copper and 0.12 gram gold; 54 metres grading 1.02% copper and 0.17 gram gold; and 14 metres grading 0.29% copper and 0.04 gram gold.

The fourth hole tested the eastern flanks of the system, 1.2 km east of hole 3. The hole cut 161 metres of the leached zone grading 0.02% copper and 0.06 gram gold between a depth of 25 and 186 metres before encountering 87 metres of primary mineralization grading 0.2% copper and 0.05 gram gold from a depth of 186-273 metres.

The third hole was drilled 550 metres northwest of hole 1, which intersected a previously reported 196 metres of primary mineralization grading 0.2% copper and 0.06 gram gold between a depth of 254 and 450 metres.

Hole 2, drilled 700 metres west of the first hole, intersected a previously reported 44 metres of enriched mineralization at a depth of 256-300 metres grading 1.32% copper and 0.07 gram gold. From 300 to 409 metres, the hole cut primary mineralization grading up to 0.39% copper and 0.14 gram gold.

BHP plans to continue drilling the mineralized system on 500-metre centres and test for a shallower, supergene zone to the west of holes 2 and 3 in a topographically lower portion of the property.