Since optioning the Cerro Corona project in Peru in early 1994, Barrick Gold (TSE) has drilled more than 200 holes and carried out extensive metallurgical testing, environmental baseline work and infrastructure studies.
The major gold producer is now completing a feasibility study for the project, which is situated in the country’s Cajamarca province. A production decision is expected sometime this year.
Barrick President Robert Smith has told analysts that potential annual production from its 75% interest in the property would be in the range of 150,000 oz. gold per year.
The overall average grade of the resource (to July, 1994) is 0.04 oz. gold per ton and 0.6% copper, containing about 3 million oz. gold and 1 billion lb. copper.
Cerro Corona is a gold-copper porphyry deposit hosted by a Miocene diorite stock which intrudes Cretaceous limestones. The stock is significantly altered.
The deposit is characterized by three dominant zones: an upper oxide zone in which copper has been leached and mobilized, while the native gold remains; a transition zone characterized by copper minerals such as covellite and chalcocite; and a basal zone of hypogene mineralization in which copper occurs primarily as chalcopyrite and the gold is associated with pyrite.
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