NGEx hits 4% copper, 11g gold at Lunahuasi in Argentina

NGEx Minerals (TSX: NGEX; US-OTCQ: NGXXF) said new drilling at the Lunahuasi polymetallic project in Argentina vertically extended an existing high-grade zone by 100 metres. The stock rose.

Hole DPDH048 in the deposit’s Saturn zone cut 23 metres of 4.01% copper, 11.3 grams gold and 228 grams silver from 497 metres downhole, and 9 metres of 6.31% copper, 26.99 grams gold and 547.5 grams silver from about 509 metres depth, NGEx said Wednesday. It was part of a 649-metre interval grading 0.73% copper, 1 gram gold per tonne and 20.1 grams silver from 112 metres depth.

The new hole “successfully confirms the continuity of the Saturn zone, as well as its high-grade gold and silver attributes,” Desjardins Capital Markets mining analyst Bryce Adams said in a note.

NGEx shares rose 1.8% to $24.84 Wednesday morning in Toronto, boosting the company’s market value to about $5.4 billion (US$3.9 billion). The stock has traded between $10.15 and $28.55 in the past year.

Jupiter and Mars

Saturn is one of three high-grade zones that NGEx recently discovered at Lunahuasi. The other two are called Jupiter and Mars.

Crews have drilled more than 10,000 metres during a fourth wave of drilling on the property that the company says is “well ahead of schedule.” Ten holes have been completed and another eight are under way, with Saturn seeing the most activity.

“Hole 48 is an excellent start to the Phase 4 program and picks up where we left off at the conclusion of the Phase 3 program by continuing to define high-grade copper-gold-silver zones as we successfully expand the deposit,” CEO Wojtek Wodzicki said in a statement.

The new hole “confirms our expectations of the size and continuity of the Saturn zone including its important high-grade gold and silver component,” he added.

Regular assays

Initial holes have focused on defining and expanding the three zones and drills will start doing larger step-outs and test new exploration targets early in 2026, NGEx said. Regular assays are expected as exploration progresses.

Lunahuasi is located in Argentina’s Vicuña district, just east of the border with Chile. It sits about 6 km north of Lundin Mining (TSX: LUN) and BHP’s (ASX: BHP) joint Filo del Sol deposit and 8 km west of Lundin’s Josemaría. Both are major copper-gold projects nearing pre-feasibility or construction.

NGEx is also developing the Los Helados copper-gold project in Chile, about 9 km northeast of Lunahuasi. Vancouver-based NGEx is the majority partner and operator in Los Helados, which is subject to a joint exploration agreement with Nippon Caserones Resources.