Andina Copper Corporation (TSX-V: ANDC | FSE: FIR | OTCQB: PMMCF) has announced diamond drill assay results from drillholes PIU12 and PIU13 at the Piuquenes North target in San Juan, Argentina, confirming the discovery of a new porphyry copper-gold system. The drilling targeted a large, discrete magneto-telluric (MT) geophysical anomaly identified during the company's 2026 survey program.
Assay results for drillhole PIU13 returned 468 meters at 0.50% copper, 0.30 g/t gold, and 3.04 g/t silver from 700 meters depth, including a higher-grade interval of 164 meters at 0.70% copper, 0.44 g/t gold, and 4.19 g/t silver from 924 meters. Mineralization is hosted within a strongly developed multiphase porphyry system intersected between 664 and 1,168 meters downhole. An intense quartz vein stockwork occurs within a potassic altered early mineral porphyry phase, with chalcopyrite and bornite in porphyry M, A, and B quartz veins and disseminations, consistent with a high-temperature potassic porphyry core. Gold is a significant co-product, with lesser silver.
Drillhole PIU12, collared approximately 600 meters east-northeast of PIU13, intersected short intervals of mineralization within a pre-mineral porphyry and is interpreted to be on the periphery of the mineralized system. PIU12 and PIU13 have only tested a small part of the targeted MT geophysical anomaly, which measures approximately 800 by 700 meters and trends toward the north-northeast. The anomaly remains untested in all directions.
Andina Copper's President and CEO Joseph van den Elsen commented: "We are extremely pleased with the results received from our first drillholes at Piuquenes North. High-grade Cu-Au values from PIU13 confirm a new discovery, proximate to the high-grade, near surface Cu-Au mineralization at Piuquenes Central. Significantly, only a fraction of the large geophysical anomaly at Piuquenes North has been tested, and we are now designing the next phase of drilling to expand on what is potentially a significant new porphyry discovery along the emerging San Juan Miocene belt."
The Piuquenes district now comprises three recognized porphyry systems: the newly discovered Piuquenes North, and the previously identified Piuquenes Central and Piuquenes East systems, all located immediately adjacent to the north of Aldebaran Resources Inc.'s Altar copper-gold porphyry project. Other large porphyry copper projects in the San Juan Miocene porphyry belt include El Pachon (Glencore) approximately 30 kilometers to the south, the operating Los Pelambres copper mine (60% Antofagasta plc) in Chile, and Los Azules (McEwen Copper) 50 kilometers to the northeast.
The company is planning to conduct measurements of resistivity and chargeability on representative core to refine the geophysical interpretation. Next steps include integrating final assay results with updated geological logging into a refined three-dimensional geological model for Piuquenes North, which will be used to finalize the design of a follow-up drill program targeting down-dip and along-strike extensions of the newly identified porphyry system, with priority given to testing the north-northeast continuation and untested depth extent of the MT anomaly.
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