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Hannan Metals enjoying first mover advantage at new copper district in Peru

Published: 07:00 20 Dec 2019 EST

Snapshot

The South American country of Peru is the world's second-largest producer of copper

Hannan Metals Ltd -
  • Very exciting prospect for copper in Peru, also has assets In Ireland

  • Has raised over US$100 million for European and Peruvian exploration and development

  • Experienced management

What Hannan Metals does:

Hannan Metals Limited (CVE:HAN) (OTCMKTS:HANNF) is a copper-silver explorer with first-mover advantage in a new frontier copper district in Peru.

The South American country is the world's second-largest producer of the red metal and the focus this year for Hannan has predominately been there, rather than on its Irish assets.

The group's concessions, both granted and pending, cover more than 38,000 hectares and 120 kilometres (km) of combined strike (San Martin - around 76km) of previously unexplored sediment-hosted high-grade copper-silver mineralization within the San Martin Province of north-central Peru.

There are three separate project areas - named Tabalosos, Gera and Sacanche - and the San Martin project, now over a year old for the company, lies around 30km northwest of Tarapoto, in the Cordillera Ayu Mayo.

The area has thus far been overlooked by mineral firms, but is a centre for oil and gas. At the San Martin project alone, the firm says there is 2,000 km of 2D seismic.

The company says multiple gossans up to 80 metres in thickness have been recorded from initial prospecting over multiple kilometres of strike.

Best results from the outcrop, 20km apart, include 3 metres (m) at 2.5% copper and 22 grams per ton (g/t) silver, and 2m at 5.9% copper and 66 g/t silver.

Elsewhere, the company also owns 100% of the County Clare zinc, lead, silver (Zn-Pb-Ag) project in the Republic of Ireland, a country that is ranked number one for zinc per square kilometre in the world and number two for lead. 

It is home to the substantial Navan deposit, which has 111 million tonnes (Mt) at 7.9% zinc and 1.9% lead.

The Clare project consists of nine prospecting licenses for 35,444 hectares. Historical exploration on the property has concentrated on three project areas - Kilkbricken,  Ballyvergin and Kilmurry.

Kilbricken is the flagship and has already been drilled over more than 1km and is ripe for expansion within a 40km strike area.

A maiden resource for Kilbricken showed 2.7 million tonnes at 8.8% zinc equivalent (ZnEq), including 1.4 million tonnes at 10.8% ZnEq in the higher confidence indicated category. Inferred resources were pegged at  1.7 million tonnes at 8.2% ZnEq, including 0.6 million tonnes at 10.4% ZnEq, which immediately ranked the project as one of the top ten base metal deposits in Ireland by tonnes and grade.

Hannan is now planning a 20,000m drill program to test geological, seismic and soil targets generated both at Kilbricken and across Hannan’s large Clare prospecting licence.

Immediate priorities on the regional basin-scale are structural trends evident in seismic data that coincide with seven significant geochemical targets within a 12 km.

How is it doing:

Hannan has set a planned budget for between November this year and October 2020 of C$1 million to be spent at San Martin, including C$160,000 for an initial 800m program of drilling and C$184,000 on field operations.

A five-month field season of exploration kicked off at San Martin in May, including rockchip, channel and stream sediment samples as well as geological mapping over the extensive strike length.

In September, Hannan reported that a new zone of high-grade copper-silver mineralization had been unearthed, named Tabalosos, which lies 80 km north of the Sacanche claims. In the same month, the firm reported that high-grade copper has been discovered in multiple positions at the Sacanche claim area, over a 27 km strike.

At Tabalosos North West, grab samples from six mineralized boulders ranged in grade from 0.8% to 11.5% copper and 8 g/t silver to 28 g/t silver, with an average grade of 4.2% copper and 17 g/t silver over a 5 km strike.

Tabalosos North West lies 3.5 km immediately west of Tabalosos North East, where grab samples from 16 mineralized boulders showed an average grade of 2.7% copper and 29 g/t silver over a strike length of 9 km.

And in November, Hannan closed a C$300,000 financing designed to help advance exploration at its Peru properties. The firm expects to begin first stage exploration drilling over the next six months or so, after permitting has been applied for and received.

Inflection points:

  • More exploration results from Peru
  • First stage drilling at San Martin

What the boss said:

Michael Hudson, Hannan's chief executive, spoke to Proactive's Steve Darling this September about the big potential of the San Martin project.

"This is a big, high grade silver, copper system that is developing very nicely," he said, adding that it was getting the attention of a lot of people.

"The challenge for us now is to find the continuity. There's certainly no shortage of copper over very big areas and that will come through more work, and critically also there's multiple levels of copper forming at multiple stratigraphic levels, which gives us double or triple the opportunity," Hudson added.

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