GOLD: Aurania to expand from Ecuador to Peru

ECUADOR - Aurania Resources has announced that it has identified an opportunity for additional copper and gold exploration based on a possible extension of a mineral belt from its Lost Cities – Cutucu project in Ecuador into northern Peru. The company has registered a subsidiary in Peru and applied for 419 mineral concessions covering 4,132 sq. km in the northern part of the country. Mineral concession fees are US$3.00 per hectare per year. In a press release, Aurania said that although the concessions may not be granted for several months, management has already started a detailed review of existing data that is available from the Peruvian government. “We recognized in March 2019 that copper-silver sediment-hosted mineralization of a similar style and grade to that we have discovered ourselves in the Cutucu Cordillera in Ecuador was discovered by a competitor company in Peru, approximately 300 km to the south,” Keith Barron, Aurania’s chairman and CEO, said in the press brief. “The Peruvian occurrences appeared to occur in proximity to salt domes, and within our concessions in Ecuador are two areas that have been utilized by the Shuar community for decades, if not centuries, for salt." "Believing that salt is geochemically a significant piece of the puzzle and potentially the reason for the extent and distribution of the copper and silver, it was considered too compelling to ignore the Peruvian opportunity,” Barron said.