TVI cuts more sulphides at Rapu Rapu

Earlier exploration efforts are beginning to pan out for TVI Pacific (TSE) at the Rapu Rapu property in the Philippines.

Recent drilling has intersected possible extensions of the Ungay-Malabago copper-zinc deposit, and surface gossans continue to show gold grades in the range of 1-4 grams per tonne.

TVI has intersected two zones of massive sulphide mineralization at Ungay-Malabago: one of 15.5 metres core length grading 0.95% copper and 4.54% zinc, plus 2.39 grams gold and 25.57 grams silver per tonne; and another, of 27.33 metres grading 1.51% copper and 1.42% zinc, plus 4.06 grams gold and 40.21 grams silver.

The company believes the zones correlate with a known “upper” zone, already included in earlier reserve calculations, and a “lower” zone that has not been adequately drill-tested. Delineation of the lower zone could provide a substantial increase in reserves.

Drill-testing in the shallow, oxidized part of the Ungay-Malabago deposit is continuing, and the company plans to evaluate the feasibility of an open-pit operation to recover gold from this zone. Test pits in the waste dump at Hixbar deposit are also being evaluated, since earlier operators had treated the oxide material (depleted of its copper and zinc) as a waste. A third area, where oxide float has been discovered and where drilling in the 1960s intersected substantial thicknesses of oxidized massive sulphide, will be subjected to geophysical work and subsequent drilling. Meanwhile, TVI has started testing conductors found in horizontal-loop electromagnetic surveys.