Culpeo Minerals (CPO.AX) has been drilling the Lana Corina project in Chile and the company recently released the assay results for one of the nine holes that have been drilled and some of the encountered intervals are pretty interesting. Hole 2 for instance encountered 257 meters of 0.95% copper and 81 ppm Molybdenum while hole 3 and 5 had a copper content exceeding 1% with some molybdenum as well (note: you need 454 ppm molybdenum for one pound, so 81 ppm is just under a fifth of one pound of molybdenum with a current value of less than $3/t).
The company is also touting the discovery of Rhenium, a strategic metal. While that could be interesting, let’s keep in mind the Rhenium grade is low at just 0.77 ppm in hole 3. The company also erroneously mentioned the Rhenium price is US$1,500 tonne which is off by a factor of thousand: the Rhenium price is expressed per kilogram and not per tonne so that’s a bit sloppy on the company’s part. This also explains why we need to take the rhenium excitement with a grain of salt. A grade of 0.77 ppm represents about $1/t (excluding the application of recovery and payability percentages). Certain portions of the drill hole contain higher rhenium values (up to 9.55 ppm) but even that number represents just under $15/t which is just about 0.18% copper-equivalent.
The copper structures remain the most important element at Lana Corina, and Culpeo is slowly expanding the mineralized system. The footprint has now been established at 400 by 500 meters while the mineralization has been traced to a depth of over 400 meter (although it is not starting at surface as about 1 million tonnes was taken out in the first hundred meters from surface when the deposit was mined). The mineralization also remains open at depth.
Disclosure: The author has no position in Culpeo Minerals. Please read our disclaimer.
