Polimet Gold-Copper-Silver

The project comprises 1,860 Ha of concessions, at an average altitude of 1,700 m. Polimet is 170 km from Santiago, via the R5N Highway. The Polimet Project will be supported from the nearby towns of Petorca or Cabildo towns via internal roads. The Polimet Project area is well served with road access, power, and water.

The concessions that comprise the Polimet Project have seen sporadic historic work, including development of two ore shoots called Santa Margaria and San Pedro respectively. In the mid-1990s a Chinese entrepreneur developed most of the present tunnels in the Santa Margarita mine and exploited the two main veins for several years. In the late 1990s the mine was bought by a local Chilean, who soon after discovered the San Pedro ore-shoot. The San Pedro ore-shoot produced very high-grade Au-Cu-Ag ore in the subsequent years. Some direct shipping ore (“DSO”) was sold to the state-owned (Enami) Ventanas smelter and a larger tonnage of sulphide ore was sold to Enami for toll-processing in a concentration plant.  The partial records of sales to the state-owned Enami show weighted average grades of 33.5 g/t Au, 55 g/t Ag and 6.9 % Cu for the 117 tonnes of DSO material, and 4.7 g/t Au, 10 g/t Ag and 1.0 % Cu for the 618 tonnes of sulphide ore. The records show a total tonnage of 735 tonnes at an average grade of 9.3 g/t Au, 17 g/t Ag, and 2.0 % Cu.  

Table 1. Historic Polimet (Santa Margarita adit) DSO sales certificates from Enami

Table 2. Historic Polimet (Santa Margarita adit) sulphide ore sales certificates from Enami

Table 3. Combined historic Polimet (Santa Margarita adit) ore sales certificates from Enami

At the turn of this century, Sinotec, a Chinese mining company, explored in the area. A large number of dirt roads were built, and wide-spaced RC drill-holes were completed. No technical information about this campaign is available.

The current owner of Polimet consolidated the concessions from 2015 to 2023. The Santa Margarita and Pia-Vaca concessions are held under a sub-option agreement, signed in 2023.

The region around Petorca is characterised by epithermal low sulfidation vein systems hosted by Cretaceous volcanic andesitic sequences (Camus et al., 1991) in the western foothills of the Andean Cordillera of central Chile. The area hosts nearly 90 ore bodies, mostly polymetallic veins, some copper veins, and one copper breccia pipe. The Polimet epithermal vein system is located thirteen kilometers to the south of El Bronce de Petorca.

At El Bronce de Petorca, a 1 km vertical zonation is described, with a barren upper part followed by sub-economic gold plus base metals, then the main gold and base metals zone at an altitude of 1000 m to 1600 m above sea level. The majority of reported gold development in the region has taken place between 1000 m and 1600 m above sea level. Below the 1000 m level, lies a sub-economic-gold-plus-silver-without-base-metals zone.

The most significant occurrence is at El Bronce vein, emplaced in a seven kilometer long, roughly north-south-striking fault. At Polimet, approximately five kilometers of vein strike length have been identified to date. Much of the Polimet concession area is at an elevation of 1600 to 1950 m, which is high in the epithermal system.

At El Bronce the steeply-dipping lenses range 100-600 m in length, 200-400 m in depth, and 1-20 m in width (Camus et al., 1991). The vein mineralogy in El Bronce is comprised of quartz, pyrite, sphalerite, galena, tetrahedrite, barite and calcite. Ore shoots occur as massive sulfide fillings, stockworks and disseminations. One significant difference at Polimet is the abundance of chalcopyrite in the vein system, with an average of 3.4% copper content reported from the small number of point samples shown below in Table 4. The 3.4% Cu figure is higher than the recorded average sales figure showing 2.0% Cu from a much larger sample size, and the higher figure cannot be considered representative of the system as a whole. It appears that the surface geology of Polimet represents the highest part of a low-sulfidation epithermal system. It has very similar characteristics to El Bronce, but Polimet is better preserved from erosion.

Work carried out in recent years includes detailed mapping and geological reconnaissance, soil and rock chip geochemical, and LIDAR surveys of old workings. Thirteen channel samples were taken across structure in the old workings.

Table 4: Rock chip sample results, old workings at Polimet

Mapping and sampling at surface has identified hydrothermal alteration correlated with multispectral anomalies. Several hydrothermal alteration/brecciation zones (silica-siderite- argilization) are coincident with spectral anomalies for Na, K and Mg minerals and Cu-sulfides. The surface anomalies are found at altitudes of 1600 m or higher. Rock chip samples at surface have returned values of up to 4.5 g/t Au and up to 3.6% Cu in otherwise untested hydrothermally altered and brecciated zones.

The aim at Polimet is to systematically identify bonanza-grade shoots and the tenor of regular vein mineralization. Fitzroy Minerals will use the known mineralizing style that is found at El Bronce as a starting guide until the nature of the Polimet system is better understood. The main targets are lenticular, structurally controlled ore shoots along the fault. Fitzroy Minerals believes that the best grade material will be found at depths starting 100 to 250m below surface, at the altitude of the main ‘gold zone’ in the region.

During the course of 2024, Fitzroy Minerals intends to extend soil geochemistry grids and carry out an Induced Polarisation survey ahead of any potential drill program.

In order to exercise the Polimet Option, the Company must:

1. Make a cash payment of US$ 80,000 on signing of a definitive option agreement, with a further US$80,000 on the first anniversary thereof;
2. Incur exploration expenditures of at least US$2.25 million over a three year period, with no consecutive 12 month period seeing less than US$500,000 of exploration expenditures.

Subject to the requisite investment having been met, Fitzroy Minerals can exercise the Polimet Option by making a US$1.2 million payment to the Vendor in Year Four. In addition, the Vendor is granted a 2% NSR, of which 1% can be purchased by Fitzroy Minerals for US$3 million at any point prior to commercial production.