AMERICAS — Chile and Mexico draw globetrotter Cominco Int’l.

Geologists working for Cominco Resources International (TSE) are ensuring that their company lives up to its name.

This year’s activities include searching for porphyry copper deposits in Chile’s Atacama Desert, proving up a nickel resource in the jungles of Guatemala, evaluating zinc occurrences in desolate northeastern Greenland, and testing potential epithermal gold deposits in the New Hebrides Islands. “We have projects all over the world, but we’ve tended to concentrate most of our efforts on just a few countries,” said George Tikkanen, president of the globe-trotting company. “We tend to go where the geological potential is excellent, and avoid countries with a lot of problems.”

At the moment, Chile appears to offer the most potential. At least half of this year’s $19-million exploration budget (including joint-venture programs) will be spent in the South American country.

The Chilean program is funded by Cominco Resources, Cominco (TSE) and Teck (TSE). The partners hold 6,000 sq. km of mineral rights comprising 60 different properties, much of it acquired by the company’s own reconnaissance and staking programs. Two properties are being drilled, with further drilling scheduled for several others later this year.

Most of these are in northern Chile, the world’s premier copper province. The partners are not only looking for large porphyry deposits with good grades amenable to bulk open-pit mining; they are also targeting deposits with enriched zones that can be processed by heap leaching and solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX-EW) to produce cathode copper. This proven technology is being used at the Quebrada Blanca copper mine, now in the startup phase. Cominco Resources has a 9% interest in this open-pit operation, which is expected to yield 75,000 tonnes of cathode copper annually at full production.

About 5% of Cominco Resources’ 1994 exploration budget will be spent in Mexico, mostly in Sonora state, with gold and copper as the targets. The company, together with a Mexican partner, is developing a more advanced project, Mariquita, as an open-pit, SX-EW, cathode copper producer with annual production in the order of 15,000 tonnes.

“We will also be stepping up our exploration efforts in Peru,” says Vice-President Bryan Morris. “They (the Peruvians) are making good progress in making changes to attract mining investment along the lines of what Chile did 10 years ago.”

Closer to home, Cominco Resources is carrying out exploration in various parts of the U.S. Gold programs are directed toward the discovery of bulk-minable deposits, while the base metal effort is targeting large, good-grade deposits in sedimentary and volcanic rocks.

The 1994 program is based on results from previous years and includes drilling on 19 properties.