Lucky Minerals is a potential new gold discovery story in a rich mineralized region

• Discovery of a large porphyry system
• Copper call option in an agreement with First Quantum Minerals 
• Unexplored potential of 55,000 hectares of concessions

What Lucky Mineral does:

Lucky Minerals Inc (CVE:LKY) (OTCPINK:LKMNF) is fortunate to be at the right place at what appears to be the right time for gold and copper exploration, given the bullish long-term outlook for both metals.

Lucky Minerals is exploring its 100% owned Fortuna gold and copper project in Ecuador, comprising of 12 contiguous exploration concessions covering 55,000 hectares, on the same geological trend as other large discoveries in Ecuador including Lundin Gold’s Fruta Del Norte project and Solgold’s Cascabel mining project.

Ecuador is considered one of the few as-yet untapped mineral regions in South America, as less than 8% of the country has been explored. Since 2015, though, more than 28 large, international mining companies, including BHP Billiton, FMG, Anglo, Newcrest and Codelco, have established entities in Ecuador and have spent billions of dollars in exploration and construction costs.

Lucky Minerals is led by newly-appointed CEO Francois Perron, a long-time company director, with more than 25 years of experience in the investment industry focusing on mining. He is currently the chairman of Northern Superior Resources and a director at Goldstar Minerals.

How it is doing:

In May, Lucky Minerals said it received new assays from samples at the Sherman area on its Fortuna Property in Ecuador, with grades as rich as 2.19 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.

The company noted that, while still early, indications are it has identified an area about 30 meters by 30 meters where 9 samples all returned anomalous gold of up to 2.19 g/t. 

It also received the balance of assays from initial prospecting at Wayka, a gold-bearing epithermal system on Fortuna, which returned up to 0.825 g/t gold.

Lucky Minerals added that Teraspec analysis is being conducted on the samples and should provide the basis for alteration mapping, which in turn “will be utilized to identify potential feeder zones.”

Earlier in the month, the company announced it is continuing with geological mapping and sampling at Wakya and is preparing an updated outcrop geology map of the area.

Lucky identified the Wayka target in April, which consists of a large mineralized area within a surface expression presently estimated at 1.2 kilometers (km) long by about 0.5 km wide. It is characterized by outcrops of rhyolite with vuggy silica, breccias, alunite, and jarosite – all typical of epithermal gold systems.

Given the early stage of the geological work at Wayka, Lucky Minerals said the mineralized system is expected to improve as more detailed work is completed.   

As well, Lucky said it is conducting exploration at El Garo, a large epithermal system with outcrops of dacite and vuggy silica less than eight kilometres north of Wayka, in preparation for a drill program there.

Lucky Minerals discovered a large porphyry system, which it calls El Buitre, about two years ago that is a phyllic-altered envelope measuring approximately 3 kilometres (km) by 2 km. El Buitre is located in a Miocene volcanic belt that spills into Peru and Chile, which contains some large, known porphyry systems.

The company believes this demonstrates the footprint of a major copper, moly and gold porphyry target, plus indications of precious metal (gold-silver) type mineralization to the west and south.

Lucky Minerals has also identified the approximately 22 km long Shincata Gold Trend, which has facilitated more than 300 years of alluvial and placer gold mining. 

The company has an agreement with First Quantum Minerals, granting the copper miner an exclusive option to explore for copper deposits on the Fortuna Concessions until January 23, 2021, which would be followed by an earn-in period during which First Quantum would make a one-time cash payment to Lucky of US$1 million.

The earn-in period is for a maximum of five years, during which First Quantum must drill a total of 5,000 metres per year on the property, or it will be obligated to pay Lucky an annual payment of US$1 million with a one-time 12-month deferral option on payment of US$500,000.

As part of the option agreement, Lucky retains the rights to explore for gold on the Fortuna property and will retain a 100% interest in all primary-gold deposits as well as copper interests of less than a potential 500,000 tonnes of payable copper.

Should First Quantum exercise its earn-in, it would provide Lucky Minerals with non-dilutive funding for its gold exploration and a minimum 15% interest in the First Quantum primary copper discoveries, at no cost, through to the completion of a Feasibility Study. Lucky Minerals can increase its interest in the copper component to 30% with the payment of US$1.5 million to First Quantum.

Lucky Minerals has had recent exploration success with the outline of a large alteration area measuring about 2.8 km by 2 km at its Fortuna 4 concession, which it calls the Emma prospect, as it confirmed anomalous gold from rock chip samples.

As well, the company has outlined the Sherman Prospect, approximately 6.6 km southwest of the Emma Prospect, containing anomalous gold with samples of up to 1.6 grams per tonne (g/t) gold. 

The Sherman Prospect has also uncovered what the company calls “significant stockwork type quartz veining,” with a rock chip sample returning 0.477 g/t gold. Lucky Minerals believes this is an early indication of an area with bulk tonnage potential.  

The company said the next step in this area will include detailed field reconnaissance and sampling in order to define the scale of the structure, behaviour of the quartz vein stockwork and its gold content.

Inflection points:

• Potential Summer 2021 drill program at Fortuna 
• Multiple gold targets 
• Quantum Minerals is currently conducting exploration work on Fortuna

What the boss says:

Commenting on the company’s assay results from the Wayka target in Ecuador, Lucky Minerals CEO Francois Perron said in a statement: “Our recent fieldwork at Wayka has proven to be very interesting. The initial samples were sent for rush turnaround and the balance of the results confirm that our work at Wayka is only just beginning.”

Perron added: “The current assays, when combined with the initial results are indicating a strong surface expression of an epithermal high sulphidation system. Wayka remains open in all directions and we expect Terraspec alteration analysis to guide our efforts towards identifying feeder zones which potentially contain higher gold content.”

Contact Sean at [email protected]

Story by ProactiveInvestors