Ascendant Copper partner drops out at Chaucha
2007-07-16 06:37 MT - News Release
Mr. Gary Davis reports
ANTOFAGASTA PLC ELECTS TO WITHDRAW FROM ASCENDANT COPPER'S CHAUCHA COPPER PROJECT, ECUADOR
Antofagasta PLC has withdrawn from Ascendant Copper Corp.'s Chaucha copper-molybdenum porphyry property in southern Ecuador. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, the company is to refund $1,126,531 to Antofagasta.
Gary E. Davis, president, said: "Our objective remains to develop as quickly as possible an operation on this property with or without a partner. Antofagasta's decision to not proceed will in no way effect our continuing exploration effort to move the known mineralization into a resource classification in the near term."
Over the last several months the company has completed an approximate 6,000-metre drill program on two of the five known anomalies at the Chaucha property. Although the company is awaiting assays from several of the final holes; however, preliminary review of data from both the Gur Gur and Naranjos anomalies suggests that there will be a significant increase in the historical resource previously reported in a National Instrument 43-101, standards of disclosure for mineral projects qualifying report (216 million tonnes with 2.2 billion pounds of copper averaging at 0.46 per cent copper and 0.03 per cent molybdenum using a 0.2-per-cent copper cut-off). According to John R. King, the company's resident exploration and geological expert as well as a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101: "The recent drilling program included exploration, step-out and internal confirmation drilling. To date the results show that the known porphyry copper system at Chaucha has been greatly expanded both at depth and horizontally. At Naranjos, more than 0.2 per cent copper porphyry mineralization is now known to exist over an area two to four times larger than previously identified. To the southeast of the historical Naranjos resource, several exploration drill holes discovered a new chalcocite (supergene) enrichment zone approximately 40 metres in thickness. Both the Gur Gur and Naranjos resources remain open in several directions."
Chaucha exploration will move forward with a diamond core drilling program planned to commence within the next three months with the objective of bringing the identified historical resource into compliance with NI 43-101 standards for inferred and indicated resources. This program will begin as soon as all assay data are in hand, have been analyzed in detail and a new in-house resource estimate produced. Ascendant believes that Chaucha's unique location within 45 kilometres of a coastal port makes for an excellent development opportunity, especially considering the significant molybdenum credits associated with the entire mineralized package.
