Virgin Metals Inc. Announces Expansion of Los Verdes Project Through Acquisition of Adjoining Potreritos Deposit
TORONTO, Sept. 28, 2011 /CNW/ - Virgin Metals Inc. (the 'Company' or 'Virgin Metals')
is pleased to announce that it has acquired, at auction from the General Mines Direction of Mexico, a 100% title to the Potreritos deposit concessions in Sonora Mexico. The Potreritos deposit neighbors the Company's Los Verdes copper/molybdenum reserves and has the potential to significantly enhance the economics of that project.'Since the new management group became involved with Virgin Metals one of our primary goals has been to increase the size of the reserves available for the development of the Los Verdes project.' said Chris Frostad, President and Chief Executive Officer. 'The proximity, mineralogy and composition of the Potreritos deposit will allow for its incorporation into to the development of the Los Verdes operation with minimal adjustments to the engineering plans or expected capital costs. We now have a second source of mineralized rock that potentially can feed the common processing facility being planned for Los Verdes.'
Highlights
-- The 1,070 h Potreritos property sits to the north of, and
adjacent to, the Los Verdes concessions;
-- The concessions were purchased at a public auction in Mexico
City on September 27, 2011 for CDN $1,590,000. The purchase
price will be largely financed through a debt to the General
Mines Direction of Mexico, terms to be determined pending
certain conditions;
-- Historically mineralized rock from both the Los Verdes and
Potreritos deposits was mined simultaneously and processed at a
common plant facility located at the Potreritos site;
-- Virgin Metals is now undertaking to confirm the historic
estimates provided by the General Mines Direction of Mexico.
These figures will be released once our Qualified Person has
reviewed the data including sampling, analytical and test data
underlying information and opinions stated, how data was
verified and any limitations on the verification process as
well as an explanation of any failure to verify the data; and
-- Virgin Metals is also currently reviewing the Los Verdes
development schedule so as to allow for the inclusion of
Potreritos in the economic analysis of the project. That
revised schedule will be released shortly.
Potreritos Project
The Potreritos zone hosts the historic Buenavista mine and Provindencia mines. The pegmatitic bodies with higher grade disseminated mineralization are located in the north-central portion of the property. An additional zone, El Moro-Los Tajos, is topographically represented by a large circular protuberance where an alteration halo coincides with a copper geochemical anomaly, suggesting the possible existence of a copper porphyry body below the surface.
Recent sampling has been undertaken of 780 metres of old underground mine workings in the Buenavista mine and 78 metres of drifting in La Provindencia mine (898 channel samples); a systematic geochemical chip sampling program (343 samples collected); and 2,360 metres of core drilling distributed in 13 drill holes.
The Buenavista zone is constituted by a 200 metre by 250 metre ovoid shaped area with at least 50 metres of depth, conformed by fine grained granodiorite stock, traversed by numerous pegmatitic quartz K-feldspar dikes. Drilling has demonstrated the potential for this mineralized zone to extend at depth. The ore is composed by foliated masses of molybdenite, associated with black coloured acicular tourmaline. Within the area, several outcrops of breccias pipes bodies (2 km diameter), rich in tourmaline and quartz have been located.
South of Buenavista, a broad extended oxidized zone is exposed (El Moro-Los Tajos), characterized by quartz-pyrite-sericite alteration zones, upper imposed to a copper geochemical anomaly, linked to a high intensity IP anomaly that can be interpreted as the outer portion of the copper ore shell of the Lowell and Gilbert porphyry copper deposit model.
Los Verdes
The Los Verdes property is a historic molybdenum producer, which was extensively drilled in the 1970s. Repetition and expansion of that drilling by Virgin Metals in 2006 and 2007 resulted in the completion of a pre-feasibility study in 2008. That pre-feasibility study demonstrated, in considerable detail, a robust project based on molybdenum and copper recovery only; upside exists in tungsten and silver recovery as well as in improved molybdenum recovery.
The Los Verdes project is made up of 15 contiguous titled exploration concessions, covering 5,559 hectares. It lies within what could be considered the southerly extension of the Basin and Range province of the southwestern USA, near the boundary with the Sierra Madre Occidental province.
The Los Verdes reserve comprises a modest sized, compact zone of molybdenum, copper and tungsten mineralization located at the crest of a steep ridge. The geometry of the deposit is ideal for low cost open pit mining. During 2007, the Company consolidated the mineral rights of the deposit by acquiring a single isolated claim known as the Bacanora claim. Until this point, the Company's drilling and subsequent resource estimation had been limited to the area east of the Bacanora.
About Virgin Metals
Virgin Metals is a junior exploration and development company; its projects include two copper-molybdenum porphyry properties in Sonora, northern Mexico. One of these, Los Verdes, is currently the subject of a pre-feasibility study while the other, Cuatro Hermanos, is the focus of ongoing exploration efforts.
Darren Koningen, P. Eng., is the Qualified Person responsible for technical content of this release.
THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
Virgin Metals Inc.
CONTACT: Virgin Metals Inc.
Chris Frostad
(416) 306-0990
www.virginmetals.com