"Northern Peru Reports an Initial Gold Resource Estimate at Hilorico 12:53 EST Thursday, January 04, 2007
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(CCNMatthews - Jan. 4, 2007) - Northern Peru Copper Corp. (TSX:NOC) is pleased to announce that it has received a 43-101 compliant resource estimate for the Hilorico gold deposit located in northern Peru approximately one kilometre from the company's large-scale Galeno copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry project and 16km from Yanacocha, South America's largest gold mine.
The report estimates an inferred oxide resource of 19.4 million tonnes at a gold grade of 0.65 grams per tonne and a silver grade of 3.3 grams per tonne at a cut off grade of 0.30 grams per tonne gold; for a total of 407,000 contained ounces of gold and 2.1 million contained ounces of silver. In addition an inferred sulphide resource of 21.3 million tonnes at a gold grade of 0.93 grams per tonne and a silver grade of 4.8 grams per tonne was estimated using a cut off grade of 0.50 grams per tonne; for a total of 641,000 contained ounces of gold and 3.3 million contained ounces of silver. The different cut-off grades used for oxide and sulphide gold mineralization reflect the different potential operating costs of processing these ore types.
The mineral resource estimate at different gold cut off grades for oxide and sulifde tonnages is shown in the table below. The resource estimate is classified as an Inferred Mineral Resource, consistent with the CIMM definitions referred to in National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sulfide Cut Oxide Resource Sulfide Resource and Oxide off -------------------------------------------------------------------- grade '000 Au Ag '000 '000 '000 Au Ag '000 '000 '000 '000 g/t Au tonnes g/t g/t Oz Au Oz Ag tonnes g/t g/t Oz Au Oz Ag Oz Au Oz Ag --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.2 27,311 0.53 3.5 469 3,038 58,582 0.54 5.2 1,020 9,738 1,489 12,776 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.3 19,395 0.65 3.3 407 2,076 40,064 0.68 5.2 877 6,634 1,284 8,710 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.4 13,748 0.78 3.3 344 1,459 29,577 0.80 5.0 760 4,736 1,104 6,194 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.5 9,776 0.91 3.3 287 1,021 21,340 0.93 4.8 641 3,321 928 4,342 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.6 7,251 1.04 3.3 242 776 16,446 1.05 4.6 556 2,427 798 3,203 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.7 5,458 1.17 3.4 205 588 13,472 1.14 4.3 494 1,863 698 2,450 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The mineral resource estimate is based on assay results from 8,656 metres of drilling in 27 diamond drill holes. Robert Sim, P.Geo., from Norwest Corporation and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, was responsible for the mineral resource estimate. This estimate will be filed in a Technical Report, compliant with NI 43-101, and posted on SEDAR within 45 days.
Metallurgical testwork on drill core from the oxide and sulphide portions of the deposit is underway at Plenge Laboratories in Lima and results are expected in January 2007.
At present Northern Peru Copper has drilled 9,650 meters in 30 holes at Hilorico. Holes HR-06-28 through HR-06-30 targeted gold and zinc rich polymetallic replacement mineralization such as the 3.85 meters grading 16.7% zinc, 18.6 grams/tonne silver, 0.6 grams/tonne gold, 0.29% copper and 0.20% lead intersected in hole HR-06-25 from 108.00 to 111.85 meters. Northern Peru Copper views the limestones located to the east of Hilorico, and within the company's claim block as highly prospective for polymetallic replacement deposits and this area will be intensively explored in 2007.
Work on the Galeno Prefeasibility Study is continuing and the results will be published early in January 2007.
The Galeno project is located in the Yanacocha mining district of northern Peru, approximately 16 kilometers east of the mining operations at Yanacocha (650 million tonnes @ 1.0 g/t Au). The district contains a number of major copper/gold deposits, including the Newmont/Buenaventura owned Conga project located 5 kilometers to the north (337 million tonnes @ 0.3% Cu, 0.8 g/t Au), the Peruvian government owned Michiquillay deposit (630 million tonnes @ 0.69% Cu, 0.14 g/t Au) 5 kilometers to the south and the Cerro Corona project (119 million tonnes @ 0.47% Cu, 1 g/t Au) currently under construction by Gold Fields and located 35 kilometers to the north.
A detailed drill plan and drill sections for Hilorico along with a complete listing of drill intercepts reported to date is available on the company's website: http://www.northernperu.com/s/ElGaleno-Hilorico.asp
Marshall Koval, P.Geo., is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 for the Galeno Project.
Jeff O'Toole, a geologist with over 25 years of experience is supervising the quality control and quality assurance program on site. Logging and sampling are completed in Northern Peru's secure facility located at the project. The drill cores are mechanically split on site and samples are transported to the ALS Chemex facility in Lima for sample preparation and analysis. Northern Peru inserts standards, blanks and duplicates selected on a random basis into the sample stream and sends 5% of the sample pulps to check laboratories in Vancouver.
NORTHERN PERU COPPER CORP.
Marshall Koval, CEO & President"
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