Shares in Ecuador-focused miner SolGold (LON, TSX:SOLG) were slightly up on Wednesday after the company said it has discovered “promising” new copper prospects at the Porvenir and Timbara projects.
According to the company, rock chip samples from both assets, located in the south of Ecuador, graded up to 4.27% copper.
SolGold also said it found outcropping porphyry style copper mineralization at the projects, which are of Jurassic age similar to nearby Lundin Gold’s (TSX:LUG) greenfield project Fruta del Norte, as well as to Mirador and Santa Barbara deposits.
The Ecuador-focused miner said it has discovered ‘promising’ new copper prospects at the Porvenir and Timbara projects, with rock chip samples graded up to 4.27% of the metal.
The miner said rock chip samples from Porvenir returned grades of 1.58%, 1.30% and 4.27% copper. At Timbara, rock chip samples returned 1.00%, 1.23%, 1.59%, 1.64% and 2.44% copper in different samples.
This follows on from SolGold’s discovery announced earlier this week of an extensive new corridor of porphyry copper mineralisation at its La Hueca project. The two new mineralised prospects revealed on Wednesday are located along trend, south-west of La Hueca.
The company’s stock rose on the news, almost 1% up in London to 27 pence in midafternoon trading.
SolGold, which earlier this year began trading in the Toronto Stock Exchange, has grabbed headlines thanks mainly to its flagship asset — Cascabel copper-gold project, located 180 km north of the country’s capital Quito.
That project is located in the northern portion of the Andean copper belt in Ecuador, renowned for hosting almost half the world’s copper known reserves.
The South American country has been gaining ground as a mining investment destination thanks to a revised regulatory framework and a major investor engagement campaign that has already attracted around 420 applications for concessions in less than a year.
Currently, the nation’s emerging mining sector employs 3,700 people, but the government estimates the figure will rise to about 16,000 in the 2017-2020 period.
The country’s Ministry of Mining has said it expects to receive $488 million in revenue in the next four years from the 237 mining concessions that it recently granted to private companies.
