Minera Andes reports latest drill results at Los Azules (March 09, 2010)

Vancouver – Minera Andes (MAI-T, MNEAF-Q) is pulling long copper intercepts at the Los Azules project in Argentina as the company continues its work to upgrade and expand the project’s growing deposit.

The company has already outlined a massive resource at Los Azules of 922 million inferred tonnes grading 0.55% copper spread over an area 3.7 km long by 1 km wide. Now it is working to better define the deposit’s higher grade, near-surface core, which currently contains 161 million inferred tones grading 0.87% copper.

The higher-grade zone sits within the northern half of the elongated deposit. Collared in a north-south line near the centre of the zone, hole 46 hit 145 metres grading 1.08% copper starting 115 metres downhole, hole 47 cut 76.8 metres averaging 0.92% copper starting at 102 metres, and hole 48 intersected 216 metres grading 1.01% copper from 123 metres below ground.

Hole 49, at the southern edge of the high-grade zone, returned 236 metres grading 1.05% copper starting at 62 metres. Hole 50, in the western portion of the zone, hit 38 metres grading 0.68% copper staring 94 metres downhole. The deepest sections of hole 49 and 50 are still awaiting analysis.

Pushing northward of both the high-grade zone and the defined deposit, hole 45 returned 194.9 metres grading 0.35% copper starting at 456 metres downhole. Hole 51 was also cut north of mineralization, but has yet to be assayed.

So far this year the company has completed 5,032 metres of drilling with four rigs and is working on four more holes. The company had already completed some 83 drill holes producing 19,680 metres of samples before the latest round of drilling began.

Los Azules is a large copper porphyry system in western San Juan province. It is shares a belt of porphyry copper deposits along the Chilean and Argentinean border with the likes of Codelco‘s El Teniente and Andina mines, Anglo American‘s (AAUKY-O, AAL-L) Los Bronces mine, and Antofagasta‘s (ANTO-L) Los Pelambres mine.

Minera Andes owns the Los Azules project independently, though a court challenge has the potential to change that. Xstrata (XTA-L) forfeited its right to a 51% back-in on the property when the option expired in late 2009, but TNR Gold (TNR-V) contends an earlier agreement it had with Xstrata should give it a 25% back-in right to some of the concessions at Los Azules. A court date for the dispute is set for the fall of 2010.

In addition to the Los Azules project, Minera Andes holds a 49% stake in the San Jose silver mine, a joint venture with Hochschild Mining (HOC-L, HCHDF-O). Following an expansion, the vein-hosted San Jose mine produced 77,070 oz. gold and 4.9 million oz. silver in 2009.

Minera Andes’s share price moved up 5¢ on news of the high-grade intercepts to close at 89¢. The company’s 52-week share price is between 55¢ and a dollar, with 263 million shares outstanding.