Northern Peru drills higher grades at Hilorico (October 15, 2007)

Vancouver — The latest drilling by Northern Peru Copper (NOC-T, NPUCF-O) at its Hilorico gold project, in northwestern Peru’s Yanacocha district, has hit some of the highest gold grades encountered to date.

Hole 31 was drilled as a deep step-out hole on the southern margin of the deposit and cut 122.6 metres (from 111.4 metres down-hole) grading 1.57 grams gold per tonne and 13.6 grams silver in brecciated quartzites with a sulphide matrix, and included a 40-metre interval averaging 3.09 grams gold and 7.9 grams silver.

Another hole, 29, intersected 6.8 metres (from 17.8 metres) of oxide mineralization grading 10 grams gold and 6.9 grams silver, including a 2-metre section of 26.5 grams gold. Deeper down the hole, wider intervals of sulphide mineralization were encountered and returned up to 66 metres of 1.6 grams gold and 5.5 grams silver.

Drilling also encountered significant sections of zinc mineralization, including 4 metres of 4.5% zinc in hole 27 and 4 metres of 6.35% zinc in hole 30.

Hilorico is a high-sulphidation epithermal gold system hosted in a siliciclastic sedimentary sequence. Gold mineralization is associated with feeder structures and breccia zones.

The oxide zone hosts an inferred resource of 19.4 million tonnes grading 0.65 gram gold and 3.3 grams silver, using a 0.3-gram gold cutoff grade; that equals about 407,000 contained ounces gold and just over 2 million oz. silver.

The sulphide zone hosts about 21.3 million inferred tonnes at 0.93 gram gold and 4.8 grams silver, using a 0.5-gram gold cutoff, for about 641,000 contained ounces gold and just over 3.3 million contained ounces silver.

Hilorico is located just 1 km from Northern Peru Copper’s flagship Galeno copper-gold-molybdenum deposit, which is undergoing a final bankable feasibility study.

Shares of Northern Peru Copper inched up 4% on the results, gaining 38 to close at $10 per share. The stock has a 52-week trading range of $4.15-$12.60.