Metminco upgrades copper resource at Los Calatos by 350% to 926mt

Metminco (ASX, LON: MNC) have reported that following phase two drilling by Hampton Mining, resources at Hampton’s Los Calatos Project in Peru have increased by approximately 350% to 926 million tonnes.

Metminco has a 69.4% interest in Hampton. The project is at an early stage (~ 21,000m drilling) exploring a world class Cu-Mo porphyry system (~ 10km long) within a major Cu porphyry belt.

Planning is underway for a new 50,000m drill program. The drilled mineralization (~ 900m x 500m) is open in several directions and at depth.
In the phase two drilling campaign at Los Calatos Hampton drilled 10 core holes totaling 9,516m from November 2009 to March 2010, supplementing 13 cored holes previously drilled by Hampton (phase 1, totaling 6,387m), and 39 cored and reverse circulation holes drilled previously by Phelps Dodge and Barrick.

Total metres drilled on the Los Calatos Project to June 2010 are 21,261m, of which 20,393m was considered in the revised June 2010 resource estimate.

In June 2010 total resources for the Los Calatos Project of 926 million tonnes, using a cut off grade of 0.2% Cu., are subdivided into:

- Indicated Resources of 111,264 million tonnes at 0.39% Cu and 0.038% Mo; and
- Inferred Resources of 814,970 million tonnes at 0.37% Cu and 0.026% Mo.

Hampton is preparing a more detailed technical report on the Los Calatos Project, to be released in this quarter.

Hampton is also currently planning to commence a 50,000 metre phase 3 drilling program at Los Calatos, seeking to extend current resources, and to drill test other nearby exploration targets.

Metminco recently appointment Tim Read and Francisco Vergara Irarrazaval. Read is based in the United Kingdom and was formerly an investment banker and corporate executive and has over forty years experience in the mining and metals sector.

Vergara is senior partner of a law firm in Santiago, Chile and has extensive experience in the resources sector in Chile and in other Latin American countries.