Home » Projects » Cuatro Ciénegas

Cuatro Ciénegas

The Cuatro Ciénegas Property consists of 6 concessions totaling 3,408 hectares and is located about two hours northeast of the city of Torreón, in the State of Coahuila, on Highway 30 and about 40km south of the town of Cuatro Ciénegas (refer to map in Corporate Presentation).

The property appears to be a breached anticline containing a sedimentary formation of sandstones up to 20 metres in thickness of the "red bed" type formation. It is considered to have been formed in a marine environment, the "Mar Coahuilense" or Sea of Coahuila, approximately 72 million years ago, that stretched from Coahuila State to southern Texas. Red bed formations are known to typically contain large tonnages of high grade copper and historically have accounted for about 30% of world copper production.

Limited exploration activity by several North American companies was undertaken on the Cuatro Ciénegas Property in the 1990's. Exploration was discontinued due to the then low copper prices and the companies' interests in the mineral concessions lapsed. Limited channel sampling of surface outcrops and underground exposures (from small mine activity) reports copper oxide values (primarily malachite, azurite with some chalcocite) ranging from 0.56% to 5.16% and silver from 88 grams per tonne ("g/t") to 576 g/t.  

Field mapping suggests estimated strike lengths of the cupriferous sandstone beds of approximately 1.7km in the southern, "El Granizo" claims, and approximately 7.7km in the northern, "Don Indio" claims, based on surface exposures, although much of the cupriferous sandstone beds are covered by scree. In the Don Indio claim, which covers approximately 2,947 hectares over a length of about 17km, the tenor of the mineralization changes from principally copper in the eastern section to silver, lead and zinc in the west where results of previous channel samples reported in public documents show silver, lead and zinc values ranging from 42 to 180 g/t, 3% to 4.7% and 4.7% to 9.7%, respectively. These values have not been independently verified by the Company. Also, mineable grades will be lower after taking dilution into account.

Under the terms of the agreement with Mineria Melina S.A. de C.V., the Company is obligated to put the property into production at an estimated daily production rate of 1,000 tonnes within 18 months (or by November 7, 2009). The Company plans to produce feed for an acid heap leaching operation from underground exploration drifts and produce cement copper precipitate, by running the pregnant solution through launders containing scrap iron. Revenues from this operation will be used to offset exploration activities. This process will not, however, recover any silver in the oxidized material that will remain in the heap. Melina retains the right to recover this silver, if it so desires, at its cost and will assume the related reclamation liabilities.

The Company has commenced a NI43-101 Technical Report on the project which is expected to be completed by the end of June 2008. This report, being prepared by a professional geologist and Qualified Person under the NI43-101 regulations, will provide recommendations for the next phase of exploration. The Company will take these into consideration before commencing further field work.