Announcement • Jul 27
Panoro Minerals Ltd Provides Update On Growth Of Exploration Activities At Cotabambas Copper Gold And Silver Project
Panoro Minerals Ltd. provided an update on the growth of exploration activities at its 100% owned Cotabambas Copper, Gold and Silver Project, located in the Apurimac region of southern Peru. Second drill rig arrived and drilling is underway at the South Pit. The second drill is also located at the South Pit area and focused on step-out drill holes targeting the delineation of mineralization along strike and at depth including the high-grade mineralization. Ground Geophysics program commenced at Target #7. The geophysics team has commenced a program of Induced Polarization (IP), Magnetics (Mag) and Gravimetric (GRA) surveys to explore the continuity of three skarn bodies outcropping just below the surface with high Cu and Ag grades. TITAN deep geophysics survey, will commence in October following completion of the ground geophysics program. The survey will apply IP and magnetometry to target depths between 2 and 4 km below the current resource areas to guide drilling at depth and laterally. Machine Learning Study, underway to develop a 3D prospectivity map of the mineral resource area and generate additional drill targets. Metallurgical Testing Program. Consultants will mobilize to begin the sampling of the high-grade component of the Mineral Resource and commence a two-stage testing program aimed at optimizing recoveries for input into a future Preliminary Economic Assessment and Prefeasibility Study. The second contracted drill rig has arrived on site and commenced drilling at the South Pit. The addition of the second rig marks an important step in the ramp-up of the expanded 45,000 m drill program announced in June 2026 and will accelerate the testing of high-grade mineralization at the South Pit, where Drillhole CB-228 recently intersected 317.6 m at 1.04% CuEq, confirming continuous mineralization from surface to over 850 m depth. The second rig will explore the continuity of the high-grade mineralization 270 m below this intersection with new hole CB-231, searching for the possible porphyry stock at the base of the high-grade Cu-Au mineralization emplaced at the South Pit. This drill rig has the capacity to drill up to 1,500 m. Drilling is ongoing with the first rig on hole CB-230, exploring the high-grade continuity 200 m to the north of the CB-228 intersections at the same elevation. This rig previously completed drillhole CB-229, exploring the same mineralization 200 m to the south of CB-228, also at the same elevation. Assay results from the ALS Peru laboratory are expected within 15 days. Two additional drill rigs are scheduled to arrive over the summer, and the Company expects to have five rigs operating on the property by the end of the third quarter. The expanded program will test the significant potential along 3 km of strike containing the North and South Pits, as well as other clustered high-grade targets on the 165 square km property. Following the recently completed surface access agreement with the Community of Guaclle, the Company has commenced its geophysics program at Target #7, where multiple outcrops of high-grade mineralization have been sampled over a 4 km2 area. There are three skarn bodies outcropping over 400 to 500 m along strike, with widths of 30 to 60 m, containing typical andradite garnets, pyroxenites, epidote, clinopyroxenes, massive magnetite and chalcopyrite-bornite copper sulphides within the Ferrobamba limestones in contact with porphyry intrusives. The highly erratic distribution of the skarn-type occurrences requires the application of 3D Mag and IP, starting with short-spacing dipoles to follow the structural controls just below the surface outcrops, then widening to 100 m x 100 m dipoles to complement the signatures at depth. Gravity methods may also be applied if required by the evolving exploration model. G&C Ground Geophysics, a Peru based company, will also carry out the surveys at the NW Pit and South Pit targets after finishing at Target #7. The Company is initiating a deep geophysical survey using TITAN MT/IP technology, which can detect mineralized systems at significantly greater depths than conventional surveys, to explore the continuity of the high-grade porphyry mineralization up to 2 and 4 km below the North and South Pits. The objective is to establish the location of the porphyry stock at depth, either in a possible larger stock or in its continuity along contacts with the limestone blanket, which could also open the possibility of significant skarn occurrences. The Company responsible for this survey is Quantec Peru-Canada, which will execute the deep exploration over an area of 3 km x 5 km with around 14 lines spaced 300 m apart. The study is expected to start in October, after the near-surface ground geophysics is finished, to avoid interference between the two induced geophysical methods. Results are expected in December and will be used to design and manage the 2027 exploration drilling program. The Company has initiated a machine learning study to develop three-dimensional prospectivity tools for the mineral resource area. The study will integrate, into a single 3D model, the extensive exploration database assembled at Cotabambas over more than a decade, including results from approximately 230 drillholes representing close to 49,000 assayed samples, more than 7,000 surface samples, X-ray spectrometry assays, geological/structural mapping and drillhole logging, the 3D geological and block models, and multiple geophysical surveys including magnetics, induced polarization and the TITAN deep-penetrating survey. Machine learning tools will analyze this combined dataset to recognize the geological signatures associated with the known copper, gold and silver mineralization, and to highlight areas within and around the existing resource that share those same signatures but have not yet been drilled. The results will then be reviewed and ranked by experienced geoscientists, geochemists and geophysicists to generate a prioritized set of new drill targets, which will be used to guide the Company's expanded drilling program.
