Infinitum Copper (INFI.V) is drilling the flagship Adelita project in Mexico’s Sonora state, but the company recently announced it is acquiring a new copper exploration project.
It acquired an option to earn a 100% interest in the HotBx project in Arizona, adjacent to the Christmas mine (which produced about 28 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.5% copper from a combined open pit and underground operation) and just a few kilometers from the Hayden smelter, so location-wise, HotBx is in a perfect spot.
The exploration theory at HotBx is quite simple (as far as these theories are ever really simple). The image below shows a cross section of the area with the Christmas mine on the left. The (high-grade) copper mineralization at Chrismas was hosted in three carbonate hoast rocks, the Naco limestone, Escabrosa lime stone and the martin formation, the three blue-colored layers on the upper right corner.
These carbonate host rocks are underlaying the Williamson Canyon Volcanics at HotBx. So the plan is to drill through these volcanics to drill-test the two limestone zones and the Martin formation for copper mineralization. And Infinitum knows it’s there. Historical drill holes from the 70s were focusing on the area and while all holes intersected alteration, it was one of the two holes drilled by Phelps Dodge that sparked the interest as it intersected about 400 meters of skarn with several intercepts of in excess of 1% copper with a maximum grade of 3.16% coper. Unfortunately official records have been destroyed or are inaccessible, so Infinitum will have to gather its own data but at least it already knows it’s looking in the right spot.
The company can acquire full ownership of HotBx (subject to a 2% NSR to be issued to the vendor) by making C$693,000 in cash payments, issue 3.125 million shares of Infinitum and committing to C$5.5M in exploration expenditures with relatively light commitments in the first few years of the earn-in agreement as only C$1.75M has to be spent within the first three years of the earn-in agreement. So if the HotBx property isn’t as promising as it looks, Infinitum can just walk away after a few years.
Disclosure: The author has no position in Infinitum Copper. Please read our disclaimer.
