Volcan Drilling Delivers For Andina

VANCOUVER — An infill drilling program at the Volcan gold project in Chile is returning long mineralized intercepts for Andina Minerals (ADM-V).

Andina is working through a 21,000-metre drill program at Volcan designed to upgrade the resource and better define high-grade zones within the Dorado deposit. Results from the first nine holes of the program, which started on the west side of the deposit, are now in.

Hole 790 cut the longest intercept, returning 450 metres grading 0.85 gram gold per tonne. The intercept starts at surface and includes several higher-grade segments, such as 72 metres averaging 1.76 grams gold. Hole 796 also returned a lengthy intercept: 360 metres grading 0.7 gram gold, starting 24 metres down-hole.

The best grade of the nine holes came from hole 791, which cut 162.5 metres grading 1.18 grams gold, starting 334 metres down-hole. Another good hit came from hole 799, which returned 324 metres averaging 0.95 gram gold from 94 metres depth.

In discussing the results, Andina pointed out that drilling since the September resource estimate has indicated the presence of higher-grade zones within the resource. These zones were not incorporated into the resource calculation. George Bee, Andina’s president and CEO, says higher grade zones might make the deposit amenable to mining methods other than heap leaching, which is the current concept for Dorado.

The Dorado deposit hosts 492.5 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.62 gram gold, for 9.77 million oz. gold. Inferred resources add 36.8 million tonnes grading 0.65 gram gold.

Andina is working on a preliminary economic assessment for Dorado, which it expects to complete before July. The Volcan project is in Chile’s Maricunga gold belt, 100 km east of Copiapo and close to Kinross Gold’s (K-T, KGC-N) Maricunga gold mine as well as Barrick Gold’s (ABX-T, ABX-N) Cerro Casale gold-copper project.

Andina is well funded to continue its work at Volcan after closing a $25-million bought-deal financing in December. The junior sold 12.5 million units at $2 apiece, with each unit comprising a share and a warrant exercisable at $2.25 for two years. With the proceeds from the financing, Andina has some $44.2 million in its coffers.

Andina’s share price gained 4¢ on the news to close at $1.85. The company has a 52-week trading range of $1.20-$2.18, and 107 million shares outstanding.