Aguila starts to take shape for Duran

Duran Ventures (DRV-V) has a maiden resource estimate in for its Aguila project in Peru.

The company outlined indicated and inferred tonnage on a copper and molybdenum porphyry that sits in Peru’s north central Ancash district.

Total indicated resources came in at 27.75 million tonnes grading 0.61% copper and 0.04% molybdenum for 374.5 million lbs. of copper and 22 million lbs. of molybdenum.

Inferred resources came in at 355.52 million tonnes grading 0.27% copper and 0.02% molybdenum for 2.14 billion lbs. of copper and 166.2 million lbs. of molybdenum.

The company broke those resources into open pit and underground categories. Open pit resources contain 374.5 million lbs. of copper in the indicated category and 1.74 billion lbs. in the inferred. As for underground, at this point the project only has inferred resources that total 394.2 million lbs. of the red metal.

The Aguila Project is located 40-km south of the Magistral copper deposit, which is operated by MILPO and 120-km north of Peru’s largest polymetallic mine, the Antamina Mine that is run by a joint venture of BHP Billiton (BHP-N, BLT-L), Xstrata (XSRAF-T, XTA-L), Teck Resources (TCK-T, TCK-N) and Mitsubishi.

The company’s wholly owned claim stretches out over 11 sq. km and covers both the Aguila and Pasacancha past producing mines. The initial resource calculation focused on the project’s Central zone which remains open to the east, west-northwest and down the plunge of the intrusive to depth.

The company says the newly outlined deposit could be just the beginning at Aguila and it says near term drilling will look to expand the resource and test property targets that have not yet been drilled.

Some key areas of interest on the property are to the west of the Central zone, where the company has found copper mineralized intrusive rocks and 2-km to the east, at the historic Pasacancha mine, where there is porphyry style alteration with known silver, zinc and lead mineralization.

The size of the initial resource estimate combined with solid preliminary metallurgical results, which showed copper and molybdenum mineralization to be amenable to a standard flotation processing with good recoveries and no deleterious elements, has the Duran targeting the start of engineering studies later in 2012.

In Toronto on March 9 the company’s shares were trading for 18¢. Duran has 183.5 million shares outstanding and its share price has fluctuated between 12¢ and 43¢ over the last 52-week period.