Article on livewire this morning:From Newcrest to PolarX and...

Article on livewire this morning:

From Newcrest to PolarX and Sunstone, Aussies go porphyry-hunting in Americas

Sunstone Metals (STM)

It has been said before that Sunstone (ASX:STM) could be the junior exploration success story of 2019 but for authorities in Ecuador issuing an environmental licence so drilling could start at its Bramaderos gold-copper project.

Well, after a frustrating delay, the new political guard in the country has delivered on a promise to clear the backlog of drilling applications in the country, with Sunstone to get its drilling permit in the next few days on an environmental bond being paid.

Sunstone shares popped 25% higher to 4c yesterday on the news, all of which was predictable if the new guard in Ecuador were to be taken at their word.

Sunstone (80%), and its joint venture partner, Canada’s Cornerstone Capital Resources (TSXV:CGP), have had a rig ready to go in anticipation of the drilling permit being received and reckon they can start punching in some holes within next 2-3 weeks, with first assay results likely in late May/early June.

Cornerstone is of course the junior partner in the Cascabel porphyry copper-gold discovery by the Brisbane-based and London-listed SolGold (LSE:SOLG). Cascabel currently stands at 8.4mt of copper and 19.4m oz of gold and SolGold has made a spurned takeover bid for Cornerstone.

More than that, SolGold is in the sights of Newcrest and BHP (ASX:BHP), with Newcrest now holding 14.5% of the company and BHP about 11%. The tip is that Newcrest’s block caving expertise makes it the obvious bidder for SolGold. But such is the scale of the project, it could bid jointly with BHP.

The state of play around the Cascabel owners is recounted as it goes to why Ecuador is now considered hotter than hot as an exploration destination.

Now it’s Sunstone’s chance to entry the fray at Bramaderos.

The initial drilling program will involve about 5,000m across two porphyry targets and an epithermal target.

The first to be drilled will be the Limond porphyry target. It has porphyry mineralisation at surface plus a lot of altered rock. It has never been drilled before but surface trenching returned 97.6m at 0.71g/t gold and 0.23% copper (Cascabel grades 0.29g/t gold and 0.41% copper).

The rig will then move to Bramaderos Main to follow up historical drilling that intersected 248m at 0.56g/t gold and 0.14% copper and recent surface trenching that returned 615m at 0.52g/t gold and 0.11% copper.

Then it will be the turn of the outcropping West Zone epithermal prospect, a potential high-grade early development gold opportunity compared with the bulk-tonnage porphyry targets. Trenching there returned 15.6m at 6.1g/t gold.

The program is one to watch. Sunstone’s $48m market value ahead of any success in Ecuador (it is well funded and has an indirect interest in the Viscaria copper project in Sweden and direct interests in gold and lithium projects elsewhere in Scandinavia) makes sure of that.