Valor moves to expand Peruvian gold, silver footprint

Multi-commodity explorer Valor Resources is moving to expand its footprint in Peru by around 30 per cent after applying for a 60 square kilometre patch containing historic gold and silver mine workings only 30km from its exciting Picha copper and silver project in the Moquegua area of southern Peru.

The new application acreage, named the Charaque project, is on a regional northwest-southeast geological fairway containing significant mineral projects, including Aruntani’s Arasi and Jessica Gold mines, the CIEMSA-owned El Cofre polymetallic mine and Barrick’s Austral-Challhuani gold project.

According to Valor, the highly-credentialled neighbourhood is in addition to well-preserved historic workings going back as far as 500 years.

Early exploration work from old mine workings on the Charaque ground has yielded two selective rock chip samples, both returning anomalous results with one sample going 134 grams per tonne silver and 1.4 per cent zinc. 

While Peruvian regulators are expected to formally grant the Charaque licences either later this year or early 2023, the Valor geologists are still able to get on site, kicking off systematic on-ground exploration, reviewing historical mining records and flagging an inbound drilling rig in September.

The Charaque project is considered prospective for strata-bound, epithermal and porphyry style polymetallic mineralisation with historical workings believed to date back to the Spanish colonial era located in a 1km area. 

Valor said the identified strata-bound mineralisation has demonstrated manganese oxides, sphalerite, galena and malachite, while the nearby Teck-owned Tres Marías project and the Surichata project operated by the US$2.3 billion market capped Peruvian miner Buenaventura, both host gold and silver.

Notably this month, Buenaventura was granted licences for its US$430m San Gabriel gold and silver underground mine located a mere 10km southwest of Picha project.

Valor Resources Executive Chairman George Bauk said: “It lies within a regional geological trend hosting a number of existing deposits and an area that has exploration underway. Secondly, the concessions we have applied for have historical mining on them which dates back over 500 years.”

Management said growing the Pichu project, held by Valor’s wholly-owned Peruvian subsidiary, Kiwanda SAC, was still the company’s major focus with geological mapping, surface sampling and ground geophysical surveys planned for  new target areas Pacojahua, Huancune, Occsani, Ichucollo, Chullunquiani and Ajencorani.

Valor is also developing a uranium business, based on the Hook Lake and Cluff Lake projects in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.

The company is earning an 80 per cent interest in Hook Lake, 60km east of the Key Lake uranium mine and also holds 100 per cent in 19 contiguous tenements over 62,000 hectares just 7km east of the former Cluff Lake uranium mine.  Valor said much of the project area was located within the Carswell geological complex that hosts the Cluff Lake orebody.

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