Peregrine pulls long copper hits at Altar

VANCOUVER — The Altar copper porphyry in Argentina is returning long mineralized intercepts as Peregrine Metals (PGM-T) looks ahead to developing a large-scale heap-leach operation at the site.

Peregrine recently completed a 76-hole drill program at Altar in order to better define the deposit’s higher-grade, leachable, chalcocitecovellite zone and to expand the global copper resource.

The first 10 holes all returned long intervals of copper mineralization from the chalcocite-covellite zone and extending below it, into the sulphide region. Hole 66 kicked off the program with an intercept of 424 metres grading 0.4% copper, starting 108 metres downhole. Hole 68 followed up with 504 metres carrying 0.5% copper, starting at 310 metres depth.

Hole 83 returned 207 metres grading 0.9% copper from 106 metres downhole, including 191 metres averaging 0.96% copper. And hole 89 cut 168 metres of 0.37% copper from 12 metres depth, including 74 metres of 1.29% copper. Other intercepts from the results to date include 420 metres of 0.40% copper from 32 metres in hole 67, 351 metres of 0.42% copper from 152 metres in hole 75, and 458 metres of 0.39% copper from 172 metres in hole 87.

The best grade came from hole 76, which cut 271 metres averaging 0.88% copper, starting 200 metres downhole and including 112 metres of 1.5% copper.

Altar is in San Juan province, connected by 23 km of road to Xstrata’s (XTA-L, XSRAF-O) feasibility- stage El Pachon porphyry copper project. San Juan is home to several significant mines and development projects, including Barrick Gold’s (ABX-T, ABX-N) Veladero gold mine and Pascua- Lama project and Yamana Gold’s (YRI-T, AUY-N, YAU-L) Gualcamayo gold mine.

The apparent alteration zone at Altar covers an area measuring 3 km by 2 km. A strong induced polarization (IP) anomaly overlies the alteration. Within the upper 300 metres of the deposit, copper mineralization comprises both supergene digenite-covellite as well as hypogene chalcocite-bornite, which have replaced earlier chalcopyrite.

The 64 holes drilled at Altar prior to the 2010 drill program, informed an initial resource estimate of 251 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.52% copper plus 244 million inferred tonnes averaging 0.54% copper.

With the completion of another 76 holes, Altar has now seen 140 drill holes and the deposit remains open in all directions. All holes drilled to date have ended in mineralization, with the deepest hole probing to over 1 km depth.

Peregrine says Altar may also host a high-sulphidation epithermal gold-silver system, lying directly over top of and adjacent to the porphyry system. In early 2010, the company completed a detailed sampling, trenching and mapping program over the area of interest, while also conducting IP and resistivity surveys. Results from the exploration program are still pending, provided the results confirm Peregrine’s hypothesis, the company plans to start drilling the gold-silver target before the end of the year.

Until then, the company’s main focus is completing a preliminary economic assessment at Altar, a goal it wants to attain before the end of the year. The study will contemplate developing a large-scale, solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX-EW) heap-leach operation while also updating the project’s resource count based on the latest drilling effort.

Peregrine listed on the TSX in March, completing an initial public offering that raised $20 million. While new as a public company, Peregrine has been advancing Altar privately since 2005, when it optioned the property from Rio Tinto (RTP-N, RIO-L).

Peregrine owns a 100% interest in the project, subject to a 1% net smelter return (NSR) royalty to previous owner Rio Tinto and another 1% NSR royalty to the underlying concession owner, which Peregrine can purchase at any time for US$1 million.

At the end of March, Peregrine had $25.2 million in cash and equivalents. The company’s share price debuted at $1.05 but quickly fell to the 75¢-80¢ range. Peregrine has 117 million shares outstanding (135 million fully diluted).