Lachlan Star strikes copper at CMD Mine opposite Teck Resources Andacollo mine

Unhedged gold producer Lachlan Star (ASX: LSA) has intersected broad zones of copper at the CMD gold mine in Chile, which is strategically located adjacent to Teck Resources (NYSE: TCK) massive Andacollo mine.

Andacollo hosts resources of; 535 million tonnes at 0.37% copper and 0.12 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, highlighting the copper potential upside at the project.

Highlights from the first copper drill program include:

- 30 metres at 0.53% copper from 35 metres;
- 29 metres at 0.48% copper from 76 metres; and
- 10 metres at 0.37% copper from 30 metres.

Importantly for Lachlan Star is the continuation of copper mineralisation into the CMD tenements at grades similar to those mined next door by Teck.

Boosting the project credentials is the presence of copper and gold mineralisation located between adjoining open pits, which potentially could be extracted with very low waste/ore ratios given that the majority of the waste on either side of the mineralisation has been cut back already.

Lachlan Star said the mineralisation appears to be hosted in broad north trending shear zones that carry both copper and gold.

Despite being located adjacent to a large operating copper mine - there has been no previous systematic copper exploration on Lachlan Star's CMD tenements.

Additional results for the remainder of the program are pending.

The CMD Gold Mine

Lachlan Star has a JORC Probable Reserve of; 5.8 million tonnes at 0.8g/t gold for 157,000 ounces.
The total JORC Resource is 1.4 million gold ounces.

CMD is an open pit heap leach gold mine that commenced production in 1995 and has historically produced around 830,000 gold ounces.

The company has an unhedged production of around 45,000 gold ounces annually.

In the March 2011 quarter the company produced 8,348 gold ounces at a C1 cash cost of US$840 an ounce, but importantly two-thirds of the ore mined for the period was outside the Reserve (10% of ore from Inferred Resource).

Originally published at: http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/17564/lachlan-star-strikes-copper-at-cmd-mine-opposite-teck-resources-andacollo-mine-17564.html