- Sunstone Metals (STM) intersects a mineralised copper porphyry system in the first hole of a 2000-metre drilling program at the El Palmar target in Ecuador
- This program began at the start of the month and is targeting the upper portion of a magnetic anomaly that’s believed to be a mineralised porphyry body
- The hole has so far reached a depth of around 350 metres and is expected to be drilled to at least a 600-metre depth
- Assays are expected in the second half of September and drilling will continue in the meantime
- Company shares are up 22.7 per cent to trade at 2.7 cents
Sunstone Metals (STM) has intersected a mineralised copper porphyry system at the El Palmar target in northern Ecuador.
At the start of August, the company began a 2000-metre drilling program at El Palmar to target the upper portion of a magnetic anomaly that’s believed to be a mineralised porphyry body.
Positively, Sunstone has already intersected the copper porphyry system in the first drill hole. Hole EPDD001 is now at a depth of around 350 metres and is expected to be drilled to a depth of at least 600 metres.
The drill core comprises an altered diorite host rock with some veining and copper sulphides. The presence of copper is supported by anomalous copper results from a handheld XRF device used to guide drill hole logging.
The top 300 metres of drill core from EPDD001 will be logged, cut and sampled before being sent to the lab for assaying. The company expects to receive results late next month.
Sunstone Managing Director Malcolm Norris was pleased with the initial observations.
“We have achieved the first objective in our strategy to discover a large copper-bearing porphyry system. We are encouraged by what we see in this first drill hole and we look forward to receiving the assays.”
Sunstone will continue drilling while it waits for the pending results.
Company shares were up 22.7 per cent to trade at 2.7 cents at 10:19 am AEST.