Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Palamina Corp. (TSX-V: PA) President Andrew Thomson on the Discovery of Cayos Gold Zone, the 5th Zone at the Coasa Gold Project in Peru

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President of Palamina Corp. (TSX-V: PA)(OTC: PLMNF), Mr. Andrew Thomson. Andrew, how are you this afternoon?

Andrew Thomson: Very good, thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: The last time we spoke was right towards the end of September. You had reported the discovery of four visible gold zones at the Veta project, where chip sampling returned up to 620 grams per tonne gold, and channel sampling up to 1.8 meters of 19.6 grams per tonne gold. You now have located a new gold zone called the Cayos gold zone, which is about 1.5 kilometers south of the Veta gold discovery. Some pretty good numbers, including 3 meters of 30.5 grams per tonne.

Can we talk a bit about today's results and what that means?

Andrew Thomson: As we're still working the Veta zone, we're obviously carrying out regional programs. We had previously identified nine zones that we prioritized from weak to strong. And Veta's obviously one of the stronger areas. The way that it works on the properties, we seek the permission from the surface rights owners. And one of the areas that we visited is this new Cayos gold zone.

I'm not exactly sure how much time we spent there, but it was no more than two days. It was probably over a day or two. And we had the saw there so we elected to do some composites. There's some adits that we're not sure whether they're exploration or mining adits. They're informal areas. There's an area here that looks as if somebody's tried to do something. It's not anything significant so we did some composites there, again, where we got above 10 gram and 16 gram material. And then we also did some channel sampling in areas that were of interest all along this rock face.

And again, the area covers about 200 to 300 meters. Then we did some rock chip sampling. We put in all the values that we received, but I think if you look at the values they're all very encouraging that there's other zones on the Coasa property that host significant values. And again, the 3 meters of 30 grams is the best channel we've had. So we're trying to decide now what to do with this new zone since we're still fairly busy in the Veta zone and the Phusca zone. In addition to which, at Coasa we've completed the airborne, so that data's being processed and we should have that data as well to help assist us in understanding all these structures.

Gerardo Del Real: So you mentioned that all of these zones are part of the Coasa Gold Project and the analogs are Ollachea and La Rinconada. And let's be clear, it's early days at Coasa, but there are some striking similarities that I know have you and the team excited. Can you explain those for people that are not familiar with either Ollachea or Rinconada, and why they're important?

Andrew Thomson: Again, I'm not a geologist so I'll do as best as I can. The Ollachea area deposit and Rinconada deposits are both structurally controlled, as is the Coasa area. Again, we don't have a deposit. But at the end of the day, our team did 81 kilometers of drilling at Ollachea, so they have a keen understanding. There's a lot of similarities obviously on Coasa. In addition to which, it's all exposed. It's beyond the tree line so we can see most of the structures.

So from our perspective, again, we picked it up looking for what are known as jog zones in these mesothermal systems. So this is areas where, in our particular cases there’s a east-west trend, when these areas when you get that “S” shape where it pulls apart, that's where we're seeing mineralization. So we've recently hired a structural geologist who's Peruvian to go out. We've got somebody, a third party report guy that we're going to bring out further along. But he's started to do some preliminary analysis based on what our understanding is. And he's found an intrusion.

We've always maintained that there's a feeder zone, i.e. at one of these jog zones, but we're starting to be able to define those. So it's exciting from the perspective. The property, in our opinion, holds the potential to possibly have ... Again, orogenic system can go down a kilometer, 2 kilometers in mineralization. They tend to be vertical. So if there's a feeder system of that sort where there's a trap it gets pretty exciting. That's what we're looking for and we're seeing more evidence of it.

Gerardo Del Real: So I'm not a geologist either, but I will go ahead and agree with you. Now this is one of five district-scale land packages that you've put together. Obviously that means a lot of news flow here. What can we expect over the several coming quarters, Andrew?

Andrew Thomson: Well, again, I think what we're most excited about is we’re the first guys to do airborne in the belt, specifically heli-borne geophysical surveys. And we did 125-meter line spacing here at Coasa. So we're going to combine that with the data that we have in addition to a structural report that we'll be generating in order to try and pick the holes.

Again, we're looking to try and drill in the spring of next year. Permitting is under way in addition to a 43-101, which is just being completed. So a lot of activity at Coasa. We just completed the acquisition of a fairly significant data package with a group that I won't mention. They cover a lot of the Bendi, Cori and Gaban areas in terms of things like stream sediment sampling. When you look at the fact that we've also flown Gaban and Cori, and our understanding of that area to date, it will fill in the blanks very quickly. And then we've got a very small sampling program that's been carried out at Bendi, so we've very active.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Andrew, exciting times in a tough resource market. But I always say the money is made, similar to real estate, when you buy not when you sell. And I got to think we're pretty close to a bottom here judging by the commentary amongst even the most ardent of gold bugs.

Andrew Thomson: I agree with you. I think you're separating the men from the boys, obviously. Money's tight, but you're seeing a lot of M&A. We are seeing a lot of the senior groups looking way down the pipe, including at companies like ourselves. I think it bodes well in the sense that I think Peru's going to do equally well as Ecuador has been doing. And I think we're starting to see that spill over. So I think our timing is very good. And I think the concept of being drill ready next spring, I think we'll reap rewards from it.

Gerardo Del Real: I agree with the "men from the boys" sentiment. I'll add “the woman from the girls” as well just to be fair, because we do that around here.

Andrew Thomson: Sorry about that. You’re blatantly correct. Thanks.

Gerardo Del Real: Andrew, thank you very much for your time.