Lama

Summary:

Lama is the Argentine portion of the 21Moz gold Pascua-Lama project straddling the border between Chile and Argentina. The Chilean Pascua portion has been placed into a closure process while the Argentina Lama portion, which has contained metal of 3.13 Moz gold and 236.9 Moz silver, is being considered as a standalone underground project as part of a potential Veladero-Lama complex operation. Barrick has spent over $4 billion on infrastructure in the vicinity and the Lama project would utilize the semi-completed process plant and tailings facilities. Barrick has outlined a block cave underground Lama project with an initial processing capacity of 13-15 Ktpd with the potential to expand to 30 Ktpd in the future.

Barrick has committed up to $75 million at the Lama project with 10 to 12 drill rigs operating and studies are ongoing to evaluate the capital required to complete the mill and plant facilities in Argentina with a goal to target a development decision in 2024. Recent drilling in the royalty area has confirmed mineralization 300 meters to the east of the current known resource in an area known as Lama East with significant intercepts including 1.79 g/t AuEq over 96.2 meters. At the Lama porphyry target, drilling confirmed the existence of gold-copper porphyry style mineralization at depth with a footprint of 2-km by 1.5-km. The Lama deposit remains open to the east, south and west of the project where no deep drilling has been conducted.

Penelope is a satellite pit of the greater Lama project in the southeast section of the Lama project and less than 10km from the Veladero mine which is in a 50% JV between Barrick and Shandong Gold Mining (SHA: 600547) (1787: HK). In 2021, a small geo-metallurgical drill campaign was carried out to collect additional metallurgical data with a focus on the potential for treating the ore through heap leach processing at Veladero where the mine is nearing an end.

Interest: 2.5-3.75% GVR Royalty on Au and 0.5-3% NSR on Copper

Location: San Juan, Argentina

Project Status: Development

Counterparty: Barrick Gold

Subscribe for Updates