Camino finds new anomaly at Los Chapitos

Until recently, Camino Minerals (TSXV: COR; US-OTC: CAMZF) had four main zones, beginning with Adriana and proceeding southeast to Vicky along a 6 km stretch of what it calls the Diva trend, located on its wholly owned Los Chapitos copper project, an eight-hour drive south of Lima, Peru. Now it may have a fifth, called Maria.

Earlier this year, soil samples taken by the company showed another anomaly, 1 km southeast of its Katty zone.

“We never thought it would work because of the soil cover,” Camino president and CEO Ken McNaughton says in an interview with The Northern Miner. “We were quite surprised that it did work and pointed us toward Maria. Now we’ve got to get down there and see if we can turn that into another zone.”

But that doesn’t mean the new Maria anomaly is Camino’s focus. It’s in the middle of a 1,500-metre step-out drill campaign with up to eight holes, and McNaughton says for now that the idea is to “stay with what you know.”

The company has already drilled one step-out on its Adriana zone, 1 km northwest of Katty, and is waiting for assay results. It wants to drop two or three holes in between Adriana and Katty to try to confirm the location of the Diva fault and the limits of its mineralization.

Based on these results, and surface work at Maria, Camino will decide where to put more holes.

“It’s highly likely we’re going to get down and at least plug one hole into Maria,” McNaughton says. “We’re seeing enough mineralization that we pretty much have to drill it to confirm.”

Camino made its first discovery at Los Chapitos in February 2017. It drilled 16,000 metres into the property that year, ending the program in November. Highlights included: 168.5 metres from 190 metres down holes grading 0.72% copper; 4.5 metres from 246 metres downhole grading 5% copper; and 31.7 metres from 264 metres downhole grading 2.19% copper.

McNaughton says Camino spent a lot of time last year trying to understand the Adriana and Katty systems. He affirms everything was “quite complicated.”

“There’s very little if any surface exposure,” he says. “We really needed the drill data to put the model together.”

It’s basing its model on the Mina Justa copper-silver project, located 100 km northwest of Los Chapitos, and hosted by the same trend. Mina Justa has 336.8 million indicated tonnes grading 0.76% copper (5.65 billion lb. contained copper). Its orebodies have a 400-metre strike length and trace 1,700 metres down dip.

Results of property-wide magnetic surveys at the Los Chapitos property in Peru. Credit: Camino Minerals.

Peru-based mining company Minsur recently acquired Mina Justa for US$590 million. Its mine plan outlines a 90,000-tonne-per-day capacity open-pit operation, and it expects construction later this year.

Coming down from Adriana to the southernmost Vicky zone, McNaughton says the ore controls are the same — and everywhere Camino has drilled so far it has hit mineralization. However, intersections vary by lithology. The trend yields thick, high-grade samples where it intersects the bedded volcanic complex. Where it doesn’t, the samples are narrow and low grade.

Outside of the Adriana-Katty area, McNaughton says Camino hasn’t drilled enough to identify the location of the Diva structure and where it comes into contact with the favourable bed. He hopes more step-out holes can solve this mystery.

In addition to drilling, the company wants to carry out metallurgy and flotation test work, as well as more regional-scale soil sampling. McNaughton says he’d also like to drill more, provided the money’s there.

“If funding’s available and we’re not diluting the snot out of the company, we’ll definitely be back drilling,” McNaughton says. “We’re sitting on a resource right now.”

He’d like to have between 75 and 100 million tonnes defined before tabling an initial resource estimate. Camino hasn’t hit the edges of the Adriana system yet, and McNaughton won’t rush out an estimate. He says doing so could attach “a small adjective” to the project and limit market appeal.

“We want to make certain the perception is correct,” McNaughton says, “because people will jump, and once they make up their mind that it’s small, it’s really hard to shake that out of them.

“We don’t think it’s small. It’s a big system. There’s copper everywhere and we’ve done extremely well, given the time frame we’ve worked in and the amount of funds we’ve had available.”

He says if Camino can get Los Chapitos to the 100-million-tonne range, it would be close to a 2 billion lb. copper deposit, and would approach the size threshold of a world-class deposit.

Camino also has its Plata Dorada silver-copper project — a 2.5-hour drive east of Cuzco, Peru — as well as its Lost Cabin gold project in Oregon.

“If money’s available, we’d go and drop some wildcat holes there and see what we get,” McNaughton says.

Camino shares are valued at 33¢ within a 52-week range of 26¢ to $2.23. The company has a $17-million market capitalization.