Adrian turns drills at Panamanian gold-Copper play

Two diamond drills are operating in a 37-hole program at junior Adrian Resources’ (ADL-T) Petaquilla property in Panama.

Situated 125 km west of Panama City, the property comprises 2,086 sq. km and contains minable reserves estimated at 1.5 billion tonnes grading 0.49% copper and 0.015% molybdenite, plus 0.11 gram gold per tonne Teck (TEK-T) can acquire half of Adrian’s 52% interest by completing a bankable feasibility study by Jan. 21, 1998, and by funding Adrian’s share of production costs.

The feasibility work, which is nearing completion, includes metallurgical studies, starter pit exploration, definition drilling, reserve calculation, mine planning and environmental studies.

The drilling is focused on the Botija porphyry gold-Copper deposit, where the third of eight planned large-diametre metallurgical holes is nearing completion.

The second rig has completed six holes of a 9-hole exploration program at the Medio zone, with results pending.

Drilling is also planned for the Petaquilla, Valle Grande porphyry gold-Copper deposits, as well as the Molejon epithermal gold deposits.

Adrian and Teck seem to have put behind them an argument that erupted in December 1996, when the former described the latter’s original final feasibility study as “incomplete.”

“The differences are pretty well ironed out,” Teck President Norman Keevil tells The Northern Miner.

Teck has agreed to fund the extra work, though it still denies Adrian’s charge.

“[The earlier study] certainly wasn’t incomplete from our point of view,” Keevil says. “This is a very large deposit. Our ore reserves were 850 million tonnes, and their consultants had it at 1.2 billion tonnes, but it could be larger.”

The remaining 48% of Petaquilla is held by Inmet Mining (IMN-T).