Aurania Resources is on the hunt for gold at its Lost Cities-Cutucu project in Ecuador

• Flagship asset, the Lost Cities-Cutucu project, lies in eastern foothills of the Andes mountain range in southeastern Ecuador
• Proven management team that discovered much of the gold and copper resources in the adjacent Cordillera del Condor
• ‘Outperform’ rating from Noble Capital Markets

What Aurania Resources does:

Aurania Resources Inc (CVE:ARU) (OTCQB:AUIAF) is a Toronto-based junior explorer with its flagship asset, the Lost Cities-Cutucu project in the eastern foothills of the Andes mountain range in southeastern Ecuador.

The mineral exploration company is engaged in the identification, evaluation, acquisition and exploration of mineral property interests, with a focus on precious metals and copper. 

The company’s origin story reads akin to something of a swashbuckling novel. Aurania’s entry into Ecuador was driven by colonial Spanish documents describing the “lost cities” of Logroño de los Caballeros and Sevilla de Oro – gold mines that operated between about 1562 and 1600. Today, Aurania’s management team believe that these “lost cities” are located within the firm’s large concession area.

Far from being a treasure hunter, the company is led by a team of respected geologists with a track record of world-class discoveries under their belts. CEO Keith Barron cofounded gold explorer Aurelian Resources, which discovered the Fruta del Norte gold deposit in 2006 and is currently being developed by Lundin Gold.

The Lost Cities-Cutucu project lies along-trend of a mineral belt that hosts a well-endowed mineral belt that contains 26 million ounces of gold and almost 40 billion pounds of copper in the Cordillera del Condor region of the country. Aurania’s aeromagnetic data indicates a similar granitic batholith beneath the central part the project area which, if proven, may have provided a similar source of porphyry, epithermal and skarn mineralization.

How is it doing:

On February 17, Aurania announced that it was granted the first six mineral concessions from the 393 covering around 384,000 hectares that it has applied for in northern Peru. If all the concessions are granted, Aurania said it will represent the fourth largest landholding in Peru.

That news closely followed the beginning of scout drilling at the company’s Tsenken N1 target within its Lost Cities – Cutucu project in Ecuador. The target is a copper-silver mineralized zone exposed at surface, with an underlying area of interest having been identified in MobileMT data, the company said.

The mineralized zone is expected to be intersected at 75 metres (m) to 100m below surface, while the MobileMT target is at about 700m depth. Previous surface sampling has also yielded results of up to 7.1% of copper and 55 grams per tonne (g/t) of silver. 

On January 29, 2021, Aurania unveiled encouraging news in that it had identified via an airborne survey what it believes is a porphyry discovery at the Yawi target at lost Cities – Cutucu.

Porphyry deposits are the source of most of the copper in the word and are generally of interest to major miners given their size and ability to support a long mine life. The company added that it was now aiming to get hold of a second drill rig to test the discovery.

Next steps for the flagship site are to extend the airborne survey in the Yawi area and prep the first of the targets within the Tiria-Shimpia silver-zinc-lead system for scout drilling, as well as more reconnaissance drilling.

Aurania started drilling on the highly prospective Tskenken N2 copper-silver target at Lost Cities-Cutucu in September last year. Exploration at Lost Cities-Cutucu has identified 64 individual targets, 31 of which were categorized as high priority for follow-up.

Aurania has confirmed extensive high-grade copper and silver in the Tsenken B area of its Lost Cities-Cutucu project. The results extend from the mineralized fault breccia at the Tsenken A target around six kilometres to the north. 

The company has also announced promising new data from the Kirus target at Lost Cities-Cutucu, which doubled the size of the area over which high-grade copper-silver was found. Samples taken from the Kirus target returned grades of up to 6.1% copper and 51 grams per ton silver.

Aurania Resources reported recently that a copper-gold system seen in the Tsenken N2 target on the Lost Cities-Cutucu project extends into the Tsenken N3 target, forming part of a single iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) target that spans over 20 square kilometres.

In October 2020, Aurania closed a financing that raised C$11.5 million to advance exploration work in Ecuador. The company said it plans to use the proceeds for exploration at Lost Cities-Cutucu as well as early-stage exploration at its adjacent Peru properties.

What the broker says:

In February 2021, Noble Capital put an ‘Outperform’ rating on the shares, targeting C$3.75 each.

“Aurania’s exploration program has affirmed the discovery potential for multiple deposits at the Lost Cities project and yielded drilling targets for a variety of metals,” analysts wrote.

The broker noted that scout drilling began last week at the company’s Tsenken N1 high grade copper-silver breccia target, which includes a mineralized zone expected to be intersected at 75 meters to 100 meters below surface.

Noble is also a fan of the company’s management team.

“In our opinion, the company’s corporate governance practices are shareholder friendly with the company’s six-member board of directors being comprised of four independent directors and two from management,” the firm wrote. “We view Aurania’s management as a key strength.”

Inflection points:

• Drill results from Tsenken N1 and gold-silver epithermal targets
• Develop joint ventures over parts of the 208,000-hectare property
• Identify specific targets at Kirus for scout drilling

What the boss says:

In late January, following the Yawi target news, President Richard Spencer, said: “The fact is that we’ve got a big land package and we are absolutely focused on making multiple discoveries, so we have a team that’s dedicated to each type of target.”

Contact Sean at [email protected]

Story by ProactiveInvestors