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Metals & Mining |
17 February 2014 |
Mariana Resources (MARL-GB)
Price: 3.65p Recommendation: Speculative Buy Market Cap: �15.5m
Condor De Oro Update/Drill Targets at Soledad, Peru
Mariana Resources, the AIM-listed gold exploration company with projects in Peru and Argentina, has been advised by Exploraciones Aguila Dorada SAC (EAD) that the local community relations contractor who was abducted last week from the Los Naranjos area has been freed. The situation is being handled by the authorities and details will be released when appropriate.
The company has also announced positive results from channel sampling and mapping at the gold-silver-copper Soledad prospect in Peru.
Highlights included:
? Mapping and outcrop channel sampling completed in January 2014 identified bulk tonnage potential at the northern high sulphidation epithermal/breccia system, a possible concealed central mineralised intrusive and a surrounding ring of mineralised breccia pipes.
? A 1,500 x 1,500m target area (previously identified by Condor from a 25km line of Induced Polarization) was evaluated.
? Channel sampling returned positive high-grade gold and silver assays from five of the breccia pipe zones sampled:
o At Breccia 1, channel sampling returned 7.8m @ 8.6 g/t Au & 19 g/t Ag and 3.4m @ 7.6 g/t Au & 112 g/t Ag at surface above unconfirmed historic drill intersections.
o Strongly anomalous gold and silver were also returned from channel sampling at Breccias 3, 5 and 7, with a best interval of 10m @ 1.3 g/t Au & 142 g/t Ag in Trench1, Breccia 5.
? Based on latest sampling and mapping results, an initial 2,000m drilling programme is planned for 2Q14 to test selected targets at five main target areas.
Comment
The news that the field technician has been released is excellent. We had hoped for a swift and positive outcome to the situation at Condor de Oro and it seems this is the case. We expect that the company will hold back from further exploration at the Condor de Oro Project until it is comfortable that this security situation has been fully resolved. As we understand it, drilling will commence shortly after the decision to resume work at the project is made. In the meantime, the company will continue to progress the Soledad Project.
Soledad is starting to take shape. The team has done well to advance this project in a relatively short space of time. The project has returned some high-grade intersections and Mariana's systematic exploration approach has defined a number of drill targets.
The recent programme of sampling has highlighted potential at other breccia targets, not just the one previously defined (Breccia 1). The geological mapping should help the drilling focus in on favourable geology as well as anomalism. We expect the drilling to return favourable-high grade results.
Recommendation
We maintain our SPECULATIVE BUY rating on the stock. The Peruvian projects show potential and we expect only a slight delay at CDO. Soledad is progressing towards a drilling programme.
Newsflow for the next six months includes:
? Exploration results from Condor de Oro - Ongoing
? Exploration results from Soledad - 1H14
RFC Ambrian acts as Nomad and Broker to this company
Metals & Mining Research
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