Anglo data reveals true scale of Flagship Minerals gold prospects in Chile
- Rowena Duckworth
- Oct 8
- 4 min read
Flagship Minerals (ASX: FLG) continues to tap into a treasure trove of data on its Pantanillo gold-porphyry project in Chile’s legendary Maricunga belt, with the newly acquired Anglo American Norte dataset now unwrapping the true scale of the deposit.
Initially, Flagship uncovered a string of historical drill holes finishing in gold mineralisation, along with various newly identified, shallow high-grade zones. Since the acquisition and initial interrogation of the Anglo data set the company’s share price has been climbing steadily.
Now, soil data has revealed extra exploration opportunities around the Pantanillo North gold deposit, including a whopping 5km x 1.2km anomalous zone of gold and associated metals, with significant targets yet to be drilled.
Importantly, the soil data implies gold anomalism is much larger than current drill coverage suggests. The gold anomaly is reinforced by coincident elevated copper and molybdenum as well as other dependable pathfinder elements.
Significantly, large target areas inside anomalous zone remain undrilled or poorly tested.
We are very pleased with the soils results, the large zone of anomalous gold essentially centred on the Pantanillo North deposit confirms our expectations that the Pantanillo Gold Project has the potential to yield handsomely around and along strike from the current 1.05Moz QFE pit shell.
The gold in soil anomaly is materially larger than the existing drill coverage which currently defines the deposit, at ~5km long and 1.2km wide the anomaly is over 6x the length and circa 2x the width of the current pit shell. These results further confirm Pantanillo’s credentials as a large-scale gold system.
Flagship Minerals Managing Director Paul Lock
Flagship Minerals pulled off a significant coup by scooping up Anglo American’s complete historical exploration dataset for the Pantanillo gold project. The data dump included almost 33,000 metres of drilling across 148 holes, together with more than 2100 rock, soil and stream sediment samples. It also contained extensive ground magnetic surveys and a library of hard copy geological plans, plots and exploration reports.
Like many of the larger gold mines in Chile, Pantanillo is a porphyry deposit with a thick upgraded oxide layer overlying a sulphide base. Although the mineralisation is already well mapped, Flagship says the project still has plenty of upside, with scope to grow both its oxide and high-grade sulphide gold zones.
‘...These results further confirm Pantanillo’s credentials as a large-scale gold system...’
Flagship Minerals Managing Director Paul Lock
Pantanillo sits at the heart of the Chilean Maricunga gold belt, a neighbourhood rich with multi-million-ounce gold deposits. The belt features more than 65 million ounces of gold, anchored by Newmont-Barrick’s 27-million-ounce Norte Abierto mine 40km southwest of Pantanillo. Kinross’s 10.7-million-ounce Maricunga project lies 25km west, and Hochschild’s 11-million-ounce Volcan deposit is just 10km northwest of Flagship’s project.
The 110-square-kilometre project area holds an array of geophysical targets linked to magnetite and pyrite that light up under magnetic surveying techniques. Recent groundwork has flagged strong oxide gold along strike north and south of Pantanillo Central, while major alteration zones have emerged at Pantanillo Norte to the northwest.
Flagship initially concentrated on the historical drillhole data to expedite the preparation of a JORC compliant mineral resource estimate for the project. However, now other data is also being assessed, including the soil sampling conducted by previous explorers amounting to over 1500 samples. These were mostly collected by Kinross Gold in 2006 along with some additional sampling by Orosur Mining in 2010. The majority of samples were collected in the Pantanillo North and Pantanillo Central prospects, with smaller grids at other prospects.
Company geologists modelled gold and other elements and plotted these as heat maps. The modelled gold-in-soils data shows a large zone of anomalous gold broadly centred on Pantanillo North, trending approximately NW-SE, parallel to the deposit.
The takeaway message is the size of the gold in soil anomaly is much larger than the existing drill coverage which currently defines the deposit. However, additional drilling is required to fully test this potential.
Flagship’s overlying strategy for Pantanillo is to define sufficient ounces to support project development consisting of open pit mining and heap leach processing, with a target of producing 100,000oz of gold per year for at least 10 years.
Work by the company is now focussing on converting and expanding the existing “Qualifying Foreign Estimates” (QFE) resource into a Mineral Resource Estimate reported in accordance with the Australian JORC Code (2012). This will include validating existing drill data and Flagship is confident this will lead to an increase of the existing mineral resource without new drilling.
The company also plans to use the fresh data to supercharge the project’s metallurgical and feasibility credentials, with the numbers already stacking up nicely. Metallurgical test work and project studies will run in parallel with ongoing technical and permitting studies.
Flagship believes there is significant additional exploration potential for both oxide and higher-grade sulphide mineralisation throughout the broader 110km halo to the Pantanillo Gold Project, which could add serious ounces to the project.
If the incoming data lives up to expectation, Pantanillo could become one of the speediest gold resource growth stories of the year. With the gold price reaching another fresh high today, trading above $US40000 for the first time, Flagship’s reworking of Pantanillo data could prove golden.
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