Los Cerros (ASX: LCL) has released its maiden Mineral Resource Estimate for the Tesorito Gold Porphyry, part of its Quinchia Gold Project in Risaralda, Colombia.
The Inferred MRE weighed in at 1.3Moz of gold @ 0.81g/t for the Tesorito Gold Porphyry, growing the overall Quinchia Project Mineral Resource to 2.6Moz @ 1.02g/t Au.
The company notes that the MRE provides potential for a higher-margin ‘starter pit’ of 0.54Moz @ 1.23g/t Au.
Speaking on the update, Los Cerros Managing Director Jason Stirbinskis said: “Tesorito has the hallmarks of a major discovery with excellent development optionality. For instance, the high grade at surface ~0.5Moz gold optimised pit shell, when combined with high grade ~0.8Moz gold Miraflores resources, makes a compelling conceptual case for fast payback of development capital. Following this initial phase, a transition to longer term contributions from the larger pit configurations capturing the significant volumes of lower grade material in the Tesorito MRE could be considered.
“Tesorito has the hallmarks of a major discovery with excellent development optionality”
Quinchia now has global resources of 2.6Moz of gold. With five rigs spinning to test excellent exploration upside within a 3km radius of Tesorito-Miraflores, strong cash holdings and a first class technical and operational team, we remain very bullish about the potential of our project to evolve into a cluster of economic gold deposits, with multi-million ounce gold potential. Not unlike some of our peers who have enjoyed great success on the mid-Cauca gold porphyry belt of Colombia.
I would like to thank our entire team for their hard-work and determination in reaching this MRE benchmark and transforming and growing Los Cerros in size and scale over the last 18 months. 2022 is shaping up to be another very busy and exciting year for the Company.”
Since confirmation of the Tesorito discovery in 2020, Los Cerros has moved aggressively to explore the prospect, completing 22,620m of diamond drilling across 58 holes. The resource remains open at depth and to the north, based on drilling results to date.
Pit optimisations were performed by independent firm Snowden Optiro, using a US$1,800/oz gold price and other relevant economic parameters, resulting in an optimised pit shell constrained Inferred Resource of 2.3Moz of gold.
Los Cerros believes that this demonstrates the potential for sustaining a longer-term mining project.
Quinchia is an established project which includes the advanced Miraflores deposit at Reserve status, along with the Tesorito and Dosquebradas deposits which are both at Resource status. Several other early-stage targets have also been identified.
Tesorito is situated less than 1km from the Miraflores gold ore body, which provides an opportunity for the creation of a ‘mining hub’ operation, with various gold resources feeding a central processing facility.
Ongoing drilling campaigns are contained within a 3km radius of Tesorito and Miraflores, with five drill rigs in operation across multiple targets.
Images: Los Cerros Limited
