Camino CEO on possible IOCG discovery at Los Chapitos

VANCOUVER — Camino Minerals (TSXV: COR; US-OTC: CAMZF) is off to a strong start at its newly acquired, 67 sq. km Los Chapitos copper property in southern Peru.

Camino is the newest vehicle from a technical team — including Kenneth McNaughton, Ken Konkin and Joseph Ovsenek — involved in junior-mining success stories such as Canplats Resources, Silver Standard Resources (TSX: SSO; NASDAQ: SSRI) and, most recently, Pretium Resources (TSX: PVG; NYSE: PVG).

“We all had a lot of experience in Peru during the Silver Standard years, so we’re comfortable there, and we were privately looking for in-country opportunities,” Camino president and CEO McNaughton says in an interview. “We’d been self-funding these regional, generative programs, and copper was certainly a priority.

McNaughton recalls how his team had been  reviewing another project when a consultant pointed them towards Los Chapitos.

“We completed the property review and had an agreement essentially hammered out on our first trip down there,” he says.

The Adriana zone at the Los Chaptios copper project in southern Peru. Credit: Camino Minerals.

The project lies among rolling hills with elevations ranging from 500 metres to 1,250 metres above sea level. It is crisscrossed by gravel roads and trails that connect to the Pan-American Highway and the cities of Chala and Tanaka.

Los Chapitos is situated along the regional Treinta Libras structural lineament, which hosts the Mina Justa iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposit 100 km northwest. Mina Justa contains a measured and indicated resource of 374 million tonnes grading 0.7% copper.

“We started permitting literally the day after we nailed down our final agreement for the property,” McNaughton says. “We identified our targets last July, and all of the subsequent work substantiated those initial ideas. The project is in that IOCG belt of rocks, and we’re patterning our exploration after Mina Justa. It’s uptrend from us, and has multiple phases of alteration that are pre-mineral. We’re see a lot of similarities at Los Chapitos.”

Sampling across the Atajo zone in southern Peru. Credit: Camino Minerals.

Camino acquired the project from a private Peruvian vendor for US$500,000 in staged cash payments, 500,000 shares and a 1.5% net smelter return royalty payable up to US$10 million.

Los Chapitos is said to host two separate mineralized trends.

On the western side of the property, small-scale mining targeted copper-oxide mineralization from the Atajo zone in the 1950s.

Camino completed two chip-sample lines through the area, which returned a length-weighted average of 2.1% copper and 9.4 grams silver across 38 metres; and 1.6% copper and 3.5 grams silver over 64 metres.

Meanwhile, the Adriana and Katty zones outcrop 6 km east of Atajo along a prospective, 2.5 km trend.

Results of property-wide magnetic surveys at the Los Chapitos property in Peru. Credit: Camino Minerals.

“In terms of the potential system at Los Chapitos, we know we have big breaks and 6 to 7 mineralized kilometres on our northern trend,” McNaughton says.

“The Vicky and Adriana areas stand out for their size potential, whereas the other targets appear to be smaller, shear-hosted, high-grade prospects that are related to magnetics at depth. The question for us is clearly related to stratigraphy. We seem to have the characteristics in terms of genesis.”

Camino completed prospecting, mapping and two rounds of geophysical surveying. It then began a reverse-circulation drill program to follow up on mineralization at Adriana, where chip sampling returned a length-weighted grade of 1.4% copper and 28.7 grams silver across 58 metres.

The company released its first drill results on April 18, which were headlined by 106 metres grading 1.3% copper from 188 metres deep in hole 2, and 44 metres of 0.9% copper from 28 metres deep in hole 5.

Drilling at the Adriana target at the Los Chapitos project. Credit: Camino Minerals.

The drilling targeted the downdip extension of Adriana’s surface mineralization, as well as magnetic and induced-polarization geophysical anomalies at depth.

Camino reports both holes intersected “predominantly copper oxides.”

Diamond drill rigs are being sent to the site, with a follow-up drilling set for May.

“We’re seeing good oxide on surface and we seem to have multiple horizons, so there’s likely stratigraphic and structural control. Those are the things we need to follow up on and figure out,” McNaughton adds.

“Our team has proven that when we unlock the geology on a deposit, things start to move quite fast. If things go well, we’d love to be in a position to put a resource estimate together by early next year.”

Shares of Camino skyrocketed after the mid-April assay results, and have gained 237%, or 83¢, since April 18, en route to a $1.18 close at press time. The company has 36.5 million shares outstanding for a $43-million market capitalization.

Camino now plans to double a previously announced private placement to $5 million via the issuance of 5.3 million units priced at 95¢ each. The units are composed of a share and a warrant, with a strike price of $1.35 for 24 months.