Antilles (ASX:AAU) encounter deep El Pilar porphyry
Following the continued return of thick stretches of high-grade copper and gold into the oxide zone of El Pilar, Antilles Gold’s first hole into the underlying area has intersected numerous zones of porphyry-style copper mineralisation, indicating an extensive system at depth within the Central Cuban project.
Antilles Executive Chairman Brian Johnson said that all indications to date and the optimism of a veteran exploration team were auguring well for a potential company maker at the El Pilar venture.
The company’s Exploration Director, Dr Christian Grainger, shared his optimism and said that a laterally and vertically extended volume of mineralisation alongside observations of porphyry-style alteration and mineralisation in the fresh rock below the oxide zone combined for some encouraging drilling.
“With involvement in two major porphyry discoveries in Colombia, and with the quality technical team engaged in the El Pilar project sharing my enthusiasm for the results, we are collectively seeing positive signs of a potential porphyry system at El Pilar. The El Pilar oxide zone is one of numerous surface expressions that indicate a series of porphyry intrusions lie at depth,” Dr Grainger said.
“Porphyry systems always incorporate many intrusives that form in clusters, and the potentially mineralised intrusive does not always immediately underlie the most obvious target, and therefore a systematic drilling program such as we have outlined to test several potential targets, is the exploration strategy always used,” he added.
“As we have encountered multiple porphyry intrusions, it indicates we are in the right geological environment.”
The forward plan
Drilling is ongoing, directed at locating the main porphyry body before turning to the Gaspar and Camilo porphyry targets with preliminary exploration drill holes.
Assays from the next hole into El Pilar are anticipated in about three weeks, and the six-hole program is expected to be wrapped up by September. Exploration will then be temporarily put on hold while the Antilles finalise a new copper-focused El Pilar joint venture with Cuba’s state-owned mining company.
Antilles has requested 75 per cent foreign ownership in the new joint venture and expect its petition to be taken seriously as it would allow the entry of one of the multi-national mining companies focused on red metal assets as a priority commodity.
With the potential development for two open-pit Cuban mines at El Pilar and La Demajagua near in sight, exploration activities will soon be following on three highly prospective concessions in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra copper belt as the joint venture partners continue to build a fruitful relationship over the island nation’s vast and untapped mineral reserves.
Hydrothermal breccia cemented by silica
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ANTILLES FPO [AAU]