Member Info for Padmaster

May 9th Qali

The Taunton mentioned is Andrew Taunton of Solgold.

Here is the excerpt from the event which mentions the announcement within a 48 hour timeframe.

He also stressed that his country’s new mining policy is based on two key aspects: sustainability as the basis for competitiveness along with regulation to prevent illegal mining. Taunton echoed this sentiment, saying that private firms assume the risks associated with production and thereby need to act with transparency and respect for local communities. At the closing of the session, Benelcazar told the audience to keep an eye out in the coming 48 hours for news of one of Ecuador’s biggest copper discoveries yet by a private company.

https://www.as-coa.org/articles/ecuadorcoa-recap-prospects-investment-and-growth

Where did you get that number from addicknt?
I've just tried it and got a lady offering personal services lol.

(Which I declined of course!)

This is a 12th priority project identified.

GLA

Well I suppose Redcloud should have a good insight since they are a close partner - in their disclosures relating to the Solg report they state:-
"2) In the last 12 months, Red Cloud KS has been retained under a service or advisory agreement by the subject issuer."

We believe that a corporate takeout is imminent, and another discovery would only accelerate potential corporate activity"

http://www.redcloudks.com/rckstalk

Hold tight folks. Our time is nearly here.

The mines minister tweeter of the comment has commented in the past about the importance of Frute del Norte and Mirador going to production in Ecuador

Few, if any drilling permits have been issued recently. Solg as earliest mover snapped up the most attractive tenements. Solg has to be favourite for this discovery announcement.
Look at all of the challenges to Solg's first resource statements when it was questioned whether or not Alpala/Cascabel could be called a tier 1 discovery. There has been nothing like it announced in the past few years, and even if it is not Solg, they will have to jump similar hurdles to demonstrate it as a "biggest discovery in Ecuador".

Will it stop at three? Solg have mentioned many times they have 11 priority targets. The number of geologists and staff working over the past year must have created a lot of samples to announce for all 11 targets.

What would a major pay to get their hands on all 11, includong the very first, the world class tier 1 Cascabel discovery. GLA

Cascabel mining district is pretty big!

Who else could it be?
Who else has announced a "discovery hole" recently?
In any case, to boast about an announcement of one of the biggest copper discoveries in Ecuador by a foreign company, as we know, needs a lot of drilling to prove the size, not just a discovery hole.
Surely a Solg PEA fits the description?

Thanks mog. Redcloud seem very confident that Solg will be taken over very soon???

"We believe that a corporate takeout is imminent, and another discovery would only accelerate potential corporate activity"

http://www.redcloudks.com/rckstalk

If you look st the speakers and agenda Solg is the main explorer there.

The event is also viewable on a live webcam.

https://www.as-coa.org/events/2019-latin-american-cities-conferences-guayaquil#overview

GLA

Cont'd
In 2017, the Ecuadorian government said it plans to attract $4 billion in mining investments by 2021, and wants mining to become a significant contributor to the country’s GDP, but there has been some backlash against mineral exploration in the country. Last year, Ecuadorian courts ruled that the government had awarded some mining concessions in the country without proper consultation with local communities.

And in April, Ecuador’s comptroller identified “irregularities” that may threaten plans by Chilean state-owned Codelco and Ecuador’s equivalent, Enami, to develop the 982-million-tonne Llurimagua copper project 60 km south of Cascabel.

Political risk continues to be an obstacle to investment. Ecuador ranks 114 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index and 123 out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s Doing Business Index for 2019, similar to last year’s scores.

Undeterred, Lundin Gold (TSX: LUG) is pushing ahead with its Fruta del Norte underground gold mine in southeastern Ecuador, and expects to be in production by year-end. Lundin recently drew down US$159 million for development and construction from a US$350-million secured debt facility arranged last year with a syndicate of lenders.

In other news for miners in the country, BHP has signed a letter of intent for a joint-venture agreement with Luminex Resources (TSXV: LR; US-OTC: LUMIF) on the junior’s Tarqui copper project in Ecuador.

Ward comments that SolGold has a number of options to finance development at Alpala because “there are more funds in the world than Tier 1 copper projects.”

Cormark’s Breytenbach says Newcrest or BHP are the best candidates to develop the mine, starting with the high-grade mineralization. Newcrest already uses block caving — the mining method SolGold has proposed for Alpala — at its Cadia Valley gold mine in Australia, and plans to use the same method at Wafi-Golpu in Papua New Guinea.

“[We] assume mining of the high-grade core at the front of the mine plan,” Breytenbach said. “This is the key component of the project as its cash flow more than supports the large upfront capital, and it effectively makes the broader (lower-grade) resource economic. The high-grade core alone ranks well against other block-cave projects globally.”

Cont'd......
SolGold is awaiting a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for Alpala that will better define the terms of development and mining. The PEA will be followed by a pre-feasibility study with a bankable feasibility study expected by the end of 2020 — in time for construction to begin in 2021.

“The real driver [for share price appreciation] will be ongoing resource growth and regional exploration that confirms Cascabel as a multi-decade mining camp that could form the backbone for a new diversified South American miner,” said Cormark analyst Tyron Breytenbach in a November 2018 research report.

Meanwhile, ownership structures are in flux. Australia’s largest gold producer, Newcrest Mining (ASX: NCM; US-OTC: NCMGY), increased its stake in SolGold to 15.3% from 13.8% late last year, while BHP (NYSE: BBL; LON: BHP) bought a 6.1% stake in the explorer in September 2018. Craig Jones, general manager of the Wafi-Golpu copper-gold porphyry project in Papua New Guinea, represents Newcrest on SolGold’s board of directors while BHP has the right — as yet unexercised — to appoint its own director.

With ambitions to control 100% of the project, SolGold is revising a hostile bid for Cornerstone Capital Resources (TSXV: CGP; US-OTC: CTNXF), 15% owner of Cascabel, after Cornerstone rejected an earlier bid that would have given its investors 0.55 of a SolGold share for each share held for a 20% premium.

“Cornerstone is going to face some serious obstacles and risks when it comes to contributing [to financing the project] after feasibility,” Ward argues. “The takeover enables Cornerstone shareholders to share in the upside of SolGold’s 100% owned projects, which have the potential to yield more discoveries.”

Ecuador covers the least explored section of the Andean copper belt that stretches from Chile to Panama and hosts some of the world’s biggest copper-porphyry deposits, including Escondida in Chile and Cobre Panama in Panama.
With a $15-million annual regional exploration budget that Ward says will double once drilling begins, SolGold has identified 11 top copper-gold porphyry targets on 3,200 sq. km of concessions along the Ecuadorian share of the belt.

A team of 42 Ecuadorian geologists uses Alpala’s geological setting as a blueprint for regional targeting, mapping similar alteration and structure within SolGold’s 72 concessions, and applying trace element geochemistry to narrow the target areas and estimate the depth of any underlying porphyries.

“There will soon be increased news flow about what we have discovered through our mapping and sampling programs,” Ward says. “But we’re not drilling at the moment because we are awaiting permits.”

In 2017, the Ecuadorian government said it plans to attract $4 billion in mining investments by 2021, an

https://www.northernminer.com/news/solgolds-alpala-getting-bigger-but-also-higher-grade/1003806253/

SolGold’s Alpala: getting bigger, but also higher grade

BY: VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN, SPECIAL TO THE NORTHERN MINER MAY 1, 2019

Another year, another doubling of resources: since launching a drill campaign on the Cascabel project in northern Ecuador in 2013, SolGold (TSX: SOLG; LON: SOLG) has steadily converted hints of copper-gold mineralization at surface into 2.1 billion indicated tonnes grading 0.41% copper and 0.29 gram gold per tonne, or 0.60% copper equivalent (at a 0.2% copper-equivalent cut-off), plus another 900 million inferred tonnes grading 0.27% copper and 0.13 gram gold, or 0.35% copper equivalent, at the same cut-off.

In other words, the explorer has outlined an eye-popping resource of 10.9 million tonnes of copper and 23.2 million oz. gold and nearly half that is in the relatively high-grade core (over 0.9% copper equivalent) of the flagship Alpala deposit.

These latest numbers were released in January and are based on 133,600 metres of drilling.

The feverish drilling pace continues. The company has 10 rigs operating onsite, nine focused on expanding Alpala and one engaged in geotechnical drilling for decline development. Two more portable rigs are scheduled to join the Cascabel fleet imminently to expedite geotechnical and hydrogeological testing and ongoing monitoring programs.

Adding to the excitement are new higher-grade intercepts outside the resource envelope that could enhance the current high-grade core of 400 million indicated tonnes grading 0.90% copper and 0.93 gram gold per tonne (1.49% copper equivalent) at a 0.9% copper-equivalent cut-off grade. At Alpala Northwest, for instance, recent drilling returned 318 metres grading 0.67% copper equivalent in hole 86, including 100 metres grading 1.34% copper equivalent.

“There’s an emerging north–south trend in the orebody,” says SolGold’s country manager Jason Ward in an interview. “It opens up huge upside potential and is open to the north, so we are following that.”

Workers soil sampling at SolGold's Alpala copper-gold property in Ecuador. Credit: SolGold.
Workers soil sampling at SolGold’s Alpala copper-gold property in Ecuador. Credit: SolGold.

According to SolGold, Alpala has produced some of the best drill hole intercepts in porphyry copper-gold exploration history, including one intersection of more than a thousand metres grading 0.74% copper and 0.54 gram gold per tonne. Drilling to date exceeds 190,000 metres.

In recognition of his role spearheading this emerging exploration success story, The Northern Miner named SolGold president and CEO Nicholas Mather — a geologist with years of experience in large exploration projects — Mining Person of the Year for 2018.

SolGold is awaiting a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for Alpala that will better define the terms of development and mining. The PEA will be followed by a pre-feasi

I think some LTH's here were in Marl and experienced a fairly static price for some time before a successful !owball offer??

Yes cookie, I too think it will be sold.
Surely the likes of BHP would pay at least £3billion with £80billion (or more) worth of copper and gold in the deposit.
They're not going to stand by and let Solg become a competitor major mining company IMHO.

https://www.thebusinessyear.com/ecuador-2019/tick-all-the-boxes/interview

"Subject to permitting, we expect to be drill testing the five best targets as soon as possible."

What are your ambitions for the coming year?
"We plan to double the size of Alpala..."