SolGold Polishes Alpala Copper-Gold Project to a Shine

SolGold (TSX:SOLG,LSE:SOLG) has released an attractive new mineral resource estimate for its Alpala copper-gold deposit in northern Ecuador, the main target of its Cascabel project.

In a Tuesday (November 20) release, the company boasted that its updated mineral resource estimate for the deposit was now double what it had been in December 2017, allowing it to more than qualify as a tier 1 copper and gold project.

Company CEO, Nick Mather, said that SolGold was pleased with the progress made with the new update — and clearly the markets are pleased too as the company had a 6.56 percent jump in value on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

“The high grade, gold rich core of the deposit now contains double the copper and gold at a higher grade than in December 2017,” said Mather, who added that the high-grade resource was up 99 percent at 0.96 percent copper equivalent cut off, while the overall metal resource content was up 77 percent at 0.3 percent copper equivalent cutoff, and 108 percent at a 0.2 percent cutoff.

“The project has approximately 950 Mt at 0.97 percent copper equivalent for 6.1 Mt copper and 16.2 Moz gold, significantly exceeding the generally held requirement of 750 Mt at a grade of at least 0.9 percent copper equivalent for tier 1 status for both copper and gold projects worldwide,” Mather said.

“Alpala has got more to grow yet and we are pursuing that aggressively over the coming months.”

With the freshly minted estimate in hand, the company said, with a goal to fast track development, its next task was to complete its preliminary economic analysis, with feasibility studies to follow.

“Alpala is just the beginning for SolGold and we can see the emergence of the company as a copper gold major and Ecuador becoming one of the world’s largest copper producers as a result,” said Mather.

The company will have plenty of cash on hand to push the project forward, as only last month it received a hefty payment from global diversified miner BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP,NYSE:BHP,LSE:BLT), which upped its stake in the company to 11.2 percent, after first throwing in with the company in September, when it acquired a 6.1-percent stake from Guyana Goldfields (TSX:GUY) for approximately US$35 million.

On the TSX, SolGold was up 6.56 percent to C$0.65, while on the London Stock Exchange it was up 4.44 percent to GBX 37.6.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Scott Tibballs, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.