Far West Mining Ltd. (TSX:FWM) has announced the acquisition of 46,000 hectares of prospective ground in the Iron-Oxide-Copper-Gold belt of Chile.
The new tenements are located in a corridor that is defined by Far West's Santo Domingo discovery (485Mt @ 0.57% CuEq), and Freeport-McMoRan's Candelaria mine.
Far West will explore these areas by applying its proven exploration program that led to the discovery of Santo Domingo.
Far West's focus over the past three years has been proving up resources on the Santo Domingo property, with little attention paid to its other properties in Chile, or acquiring new properties. Far West recently acquired 170 new tenements that cover a total of 46,000 hectares. Several of the new tenements occur in a highly prospective part of the IOCG belt located between the Santo Domingo deposit and the Candelaria mine, 120km to the south. One large block of ground is located between the Candelaria mine to the north and several prospects with IOCG style mineralization to the south.
Large portions of the new areas are covered by gravel and sand of the Atacama Desert, younger volcanic rocks or by limestones. These covered areas have been overlooked, as exploration in Chile has traditionally focused on the large number of surface occurrences. As in other areas of the world, a large new discovery in Chile is much more likely under covered areas.
Aided by the discovery of the Santo Domingo deposit, the Company has developed a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary exploration strategy that will encompass the application of geological, geochemical and multiple geophysical tools. The Company is confident that this strategy will effectively screen large areas in a timely manner to minimize cost, and will reliably detect significant buried mineralization.
Initial ground geophysical surveys on a number of the areas are underway this week. Geological and geochemical evaluation will be conducted in parallel in order to develop multiple drill targets. The Company is searching for a drill contractor and drilling will begin as soon as suitable equipment can be secured.
To update the metallurgical program for the pre-feasibility study, testing is in full swing to optimize the primary grind and copper reagent addition suite. Tailings from the copper flotation tests have been sent to the lab in Germany and the iron test work is progressing well. Results from the various steps in the metallurgical program will be released when complete.
The in-house qualified person responsible for the Project is Richard Zimmer, P. Eng., MBA, Chief Executive Officer, President and a director of the Company who has reviewed and approved the contents of this news release.
Source: Far West Mining Ltd.