Amera climbs on Peruvian copper

High copper grades from drilling in Peru sent Amera Resources‘ (AMS-V, AJRSF-O) shares climbing on Friday.

The results are from nine diamond drill holes and 1,321 metres of drilling at the Central Cocha copper-silver zone at its wholly owned Cocha Project in the central part of the country.

In Toronto on Jan. 11 Vancouver-based Amera’s shares finished 65% or 11 higher at 28 on 2.5 million shares traded. The company’s shares have traded between 15and 44 over the last 52 weeks and it has roughly 35 million shares outstanding.

Highlights from the program include:

• Hole CO-07-20 — 37.9 metres averaging 3.61% copper and 38.2 grams silver per tonne.
• Hole CO-07-12 — 14.3 metes averaging 0.21% copper and 3.5 grams silver.
• Hole CO-07-14 — 1.5 metres averaging 1.29% copper and 40.3 grams silver.

The drills, however, have stopped turning at the project for the time being as the company waits for an unlimited drill permit. It hopes to have it in the next few months.

In the mean time it will work on road and drill pad construction, and drilling at its Laguna gold project which lies further north of Cocha.

Once the permits for Cocha are in, it plans to do more definition drilling in the central zone and test the south zone, which has not yet met the drill.

The second phase of drilling at Cocha was initiated on the back of results from 2006 that drill program was highlighted by an intersection in the central zone of 30.23 metres grading 2.67% copper and 24.1 grams silver per tonne.

Amera director David Terry says while it’s still too early for specifics on an exploration budget for 2008, he estimates that Cocha could see between $400,00 and $500,000 spent on it.

The company currently has roughly $1.5 million in the bank, and Terry says it will likely do financing some time in the first quarter.

Amera describes Cocha as a stratabound system with the mineralized body dipping 60 degrees northeast with an average true width of 22 metres, and a down-dip length of 100 metres. The body is closed off 100 metres along strike to both the northwest and southeast by barren drill holes.