MINING IN MEXICO — Teck hunts for Mexican treasures; opens

Having just opened an office in Guadalajara, Teck (TSE) seems determined to continue pursuing projects in Mexico.

The senior company, through its Mexican subsidiary Minera Teck, has been exploring in the country since 1991, when the Mexican mining law was overhauled. Its prime targets are gold and copper-gold porphyry deposits, as well as carbonate-hosted zinc and zinc-copper deposits.

Teck’s prime property is the Nukay gold skarn, southwest of Mexico City. Previous drilling there encountered significant gold mineralization within 19 rotary holes.

“We’ve been drilling at the Nukay pretty continuously this year in order to develop reserves. Although we haven’t

established a formal reserve estimate yet, we anticipate proceeding to the prefeasibility stage by early 1995,” says Joseph Ruetz, vice-president of subsidiary Teck Resources.

Teck is earning a half interest in Nukay from a private Canadian firm and plans to spend $1 million exploring the project this year.

Meanwhile, it will examine several other Mexican properties. “Most of our exploration is around old prospects and past-producing mines,” Ruetz explains. “Many of the mineral-producing areas are pretty well mapped and it’s a question of whether we can find additional reserves around the old deposits.”

One such project under evaluation is a silver-lead-zinc-copper play in the eastern part of Guanajuato state, situated in central Mexico. The property hosts a past-producing mine that was operated by Asarco (NYSE). Also being explored is a gold-copper porphyry property in the central state of Zacatecas. At the same time, Teck is drilling a copper-gold porphyry property in Michoacan state. The latter reportedly hosts “low-grade” reserves. Farther north, in Sonora state, the company is exploring three porphyry copper systems.