Aurania Resources eyeing potential multiple discoveries at Lost Cities-Cutucu project in Ecuador

• Flagship asset is the Lost Cities-Cutucu project in the eastern foothills of the Andes in Ecuador
• Proven management team that discovered much of the gold and copper 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, focused on precious metals and copper, whose flagship asset is the Lost Cities-Cutucu project in the eastern foothills of the Andes mountain range in southeastern Ecuador.

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 co-founded 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 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 of the project area which, if proven, may have provided a similar source of porphyry, epithermal and skarn mineralization.

How is it doing:

It’s been a busy 2021 so far for Aurania.

On April 12, the company told investors that the Tiria-Shimpia silver-zinc zone at Lost Cities was “shaping up” to be the company’s first discovery as it reported on first channel rock-chip sampling from the area. Seven mineralized layers have been identified, one of which is 50m thick, at Tiria-Shimpia, which is a target over 15 kilometres (km) long.

The company also revealed it is already making plans to diamond drill several key exposures in the near term.

While in early March, the group updated on progress at the Lost Cities-Cutucu project, saying scout drilling had kicked off at one hole on the Tsenken N1 target. Drill platforms were being prepared for drilling on the potential porphyry Yawi target and the Tiria-Shimpia target.

The Yawi epithermal gold-silver and copper porphyry target will see a drill program designed to test both the epithermal target and the deeper porphyry target with drilling down to about 800 metres (m). A larger drill rig will be used for the drilling at Yawi.

Elsewhere, at Tsenken N1, the first drill has now been completed to a depth of 722m and assay results are awaited. At Kuri-Yawi, drilling is underway, with a second rig that can drill to around 1,200m, Aurania added. The company also said it has been encouraged by finding “significant” amounts of black ‘pyrobitumen’ - a pseudo-mineral composed of carbon and derived from hydrocarbon – when drilling its Kuri-Yawi target.

Black pyrobitumen is rarely documented in epithermal scenarios but perhaps significantly, it occurs at gold deposits and occurrences such as McLaughlin in California, Esquel in Argentina, Waiotapu in North Island New Zealand, several Carlin Trend gold mines and in the Witwatersrand of South Africa, the company told investors.

Aurania started drilling on the highly prospective Tskenken N2 copper-silver target in September 2020. It has noted that a copper-gold system seen in the Tsenken N2 target extends into the Tsenken N3 target, forming part of a single iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) target that spans over 20 square kilometres

Aurania has also confirmed extensive high-grade copper and silver in the Tsenken B area at Lost Cities-Cutucu. The results extend from the mineralized fault breccia at the Tsenken A target around 6 km 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 tonne (g/t) silver.

What the analyst says:

Mining analyst Christopher Ecclestone published an updated research report on Aurania on April 20, saying the evolution of the story over the last year (while hampered by the lingering effects of the pandemic) is an endorsement of the extraordinary commitment shown by Aurania’s management to the prospectivity of Ecuador. 

“With major new copper discoveries nearby, Aurania is now being seen as a play on both gold and copper outcomes, with potential in silver and other base metals (like lead & zinc),” the analyst wrote.

Ecclestone noted that recent discoveries in the district have driven a surge of investor interest which means that financing is not an issue for Aurania.

As well the analyst said the Aurania team, on the back of the work done by historical researchers, have honed down the target areas for the exploration effort.

Ecclestone outlined two important points to consider. First, the dynamics of the company’s flagship Lost Cities-Cutucu project have been dramatically altered by the upsurge in the gold price in 2020 and the copper price in 2021.

And, Aurania is now seen as a potential takeover target given that soaring copper prices have highlighted the attraction for majors to potentially move into the district to enhance their production pipelines.

Inflection points:

• More exploration and drill results
• Development of joint ventures over parts of the flagship asset
• Identify specific targets at Kirus for scout drilling

What the boss says:

In April 2021 Aurania CEO Dr Keith Barron spoke to Proactive about drilling at the Kuri-Yawi target.

“This is not a new target, but we’ve got kind of a new focus on the thing. We’ve drilled it before but that was done before the benefit of a MMT survey (airborne) that we completed on it fairly recently.”

He added: “We’ve found a number of epithermal veins fairly high up in the hole. They would be true depth about a hundred meters below the surface.”

Contact Sean at [email protected]

Story by ProactiveInvestors