Candente sizes up Caariaco

Vancouver — Candente Resource (DNT-T) is encouraged by the initial resource estimate for the Caariaco project in northwestern Peru.

The calculation, conducted on a portion of the Caariaco Norte zone, shows a preliminary inferred resource of 71 million tonnes grading 0.63% copper and 0.1 gram gold per tonne using a cutoff grade of 0.4% copper.

The resource is based on 2,900 metres of core drilling in 15 holes, 12 of which were drilled by Candente in 2004. The remainder were from exploration programs in 1973 and 1995.

The initial resource covers a 14-hectare area representing 15% of the surface expression of known copper mineralization in the zone. The Norte zone is at least 1.2 km long and 1 km wide and remains open laterally. Several drill holes ended in mineralization, suggesting that the depth extent is also open.

Copper mineralization in the Norte zone occurs mainly as secondary chalcocite on pyrite- chalcopyrite and as primary hypogene pyrite-chalcopyrite-bornite in deeper portions of the deposit.

The 55-sq.-km Caariaco property is on the eastern slopes of the Andes at elevations of 2,500-3,200 metres and accessible by road. The project consists of three copper-gold mineralized porphyry centres: Caariaco Norte, Caariaco Sur and Quebrada Verde. All are being explored by Candente, having been previously worked by Placer Dome (PDG-T) in the mid-1990s and Billiton, now part of BHP Billiton (BHP-N), in 1999-2000.

The company is evaluating the Caariaco Norte zone as a potential open-pit leachable copper operation. Favourable topography coupled with a thin oxide leach cap overtop secondary sulphide mineralization suggests a low potential stripping ratio at any possible open-pit operation.

The stock was trading at 50 at presstime on light volume. Candente has an $18-million market capitalization based on 36.1 million shares outstanding.