Titan Minerals has delivered a surprise maiden gold-silver resource that has both scale and grade at its Dynasty gold project in southern Ecuador. The resource weighs in at 43.54 million tonnes at 2.23 grams per tonne gold and 15.7g/t silver for a sizeable 3.12 million gold ounces and 21.98 million ounces of silver with nearly 40 per cent already in the higher confidence “indicated” status.
Notably, management says the initial resource has been struck by only testing half of the system, providing a significant element of blue sky beyond the maiden resource estimate.
The company’s flagship project previously hosted a foreign non-Jorc resource estimate (reported in accordance with Canadian NI-43-101) totalling 2.1 million ounces of gold. New management at Titan has now confirmed the non-Jorc resource and added over a million new ounces.
Importantly, more than half of the resource sits within 100m of the surface of the operation with initial optimisation studies showing positive economics for open pit and then underground mining.
Dynasty also contains a high-grade component of 17.3 million tonnes grading 3.77g/t gold and 24g/t silver for a contained 2.09 million gold ounces and 13.33 million ounces of silver using a cutoff grade of 2g/t gold.
The majority of the indicated category is housed within the company’s Cerro Verde prospect with a resource of 28.8 million tonnes grading 2.08g/t gold and 13g/t silver for 1.92 million gold ounces and 12.04 million ounces of silver. The latest figure is a significant increase to the previous foreign resource estimate of 1.1 million gold ounces at the target.
Other prospects adding to the total resource include Iguana with 10.9 million tonnes grading 2.02g/t gold and 13.68g/t silver for 710,000 gold ounces and 4.81 million ounces of silver, while the Papayal target hosts 2.9 million tonnes at a solid 3.8g/t gold and 39.31g/t silver for 360,000 gold ounces and 3.71 million ounces of silver.
The Trapichello prospect has a relatively low tonnage of 900,000 tonnes but contains impressive grades of 4.54g/t gold and 50.85g/t silver for 130,000 gold ounces and 1.43 million ounces of silver.
Titan aspires to emulate the success of Lundin Gold Inc and their world-class Fruta del Norte Gold Project in southeast Ecuador, an epithermal gold-silver intermediate sulphidation system with many similarities to Dynasty and containing Mineral Resources of 9.81 Moz gold and 15.0 Moz silver. Touted as one of the highest grade, lowest cost mines in the world, Fruta del Norte commenced operation in 2019, and in 2022 total revenue was $841 million. Titan Minerals chief executive officer Melanie Leighton
Exploration at Dynasty has outlined an extensive zone of epithermal veining across a 9km strike and about 2km in width. Titan says there is also considerable potential for porphyry gold, silver and copper mineralisation as identified by surface-mapping, trenching and drilling at its Kaliman porphyry prospect.
Previous hits at the operation include 3.05m at 16.48g/t gold and 61.66g/t silver from 142.15m, in addition to wider intercepts with 102.7m grading 1.48g/t gold, 4.5g/t silver and 0.09 per cent copper from 46.5m.
The company says it is in a prime position to rapidly grow its newly defined resource, with extension drill testing to begin this month, in addition to ongoing programs across priority targets identified in exploration work currently underway at the Papayal and Trapichillo prospects.
Titan’s resource that is spread across 9km of strike appears to be relatively flat lying and shows some clear areas that are still begging to see a drill bit. The area between the Iguana deposit and the Trapichillo deposit has seen no drilling and it is hard to think there will be no mineralisation between the two when looking at it on a map. The area between Trapichillo and Papaval has similarly seen no drilling.
Titan’s initial 3-million-ounce resource is impressive in itself and the significant opportunities to dramatically increase that resource are equally impressive. The market appears to agree with the company’s share price jumping by more than 45 per cent today to reach a peak of 7.7 cents during intraday trading after previously closing at 5.3 cents on Tuesday.
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