Zoro Mining Corp. Announces Completion of Gold Exploration Property Acquisitions in Chile
Dec/07/2009 | Under Companies - Gold Mine - Mineral Exploration
Zoro Mining Corp. announces that it has effective December 2, 2009, completed the acquisition of a 100% legal and beneficial interest in and to approximately twelve property mineral exploration concessions covering nearly 2,900 hectares in a dry lake bed with inflow waters and subsurface brines known as the Piedra Parada Salar Project, and eight property mineral exploration concessions covering nearly 2,300 hectares targeting precious metals known as the Fritis Project, both located in Chile’s Atacama Region III. The Company (i) has issued 19,400,000 restricted shares of its common stock to the vending parties; (ii) agrees to pay or cause to be paid all underlying regulatory and governmental payments and assessment work required to keep the mineral property interests in good standing; and (iii) grants to one of the vending parties, Sociedad Gareste Limitada, a 2% net smelter return royalty on the proceeds of any production from each of the Piedra Parada and Fritis properties capped at $6,000,000 at each property, one-half of which at each property can be repurchased by the Company at any time before commencement of any production at that property for the sum of $2,000,000.
About the Concessions Acquired
The 12 Piedra Parada property mineral exploration concessions cover nearly 2,900 hectares in a prototypical salar – a dry lake bed with inflow waters and subsurface brines. The project lies roughly 310 kilometers to the northeast of Copiapo, the capital of Region III, via paved highway and improved roads, and is at an elevation of over 4,000 meters. Previous work by Gareste at the project in the 1990’s included surface and auger drill field testing and sampling of the sediments and inflow streams, which identified precious metal anomalies. The rights to lithium, light metals and commercial salts in these concessions have been previously conveyed to a third-party, with Gareste retaining a 2% NSR royalty on Lithium Materials together with other rights and payments. As part of this acquisition, Gareste has conveyed the NSR and other rights and payments at Piedra Parada to the Company. Zoro has targeted possible precious metals and platinum group metals exploration efforts relating to the inflow waters and the uplifted dry lake bed surface sediments.
The Fritis property consists of 8 mineral exploration concessions covering approximately 2,300 hectares, located roughly 40 kilometers to the south of Copiapo, via paved highway and improved roads, and at an elevation of 500 meters. These concessions appear to contain epithermal precious metals targets. The property was previously controlled by Teck-Cominco until last year when the concessions lapsed and were acquired by Gareste, who conducted a surface sampling program in 2009 which returned anomalous gold values. Zoro has identified several areas at the concessions which could be the targets of future exploration efforts.
At both Piedra Parada and Fritis, Zoro anticipates that it will prepare NI 43-101 Technical Reports, and if warranted, commission exploration programs focusing on the precious metal potential of the surface minable portions of these properties.
About Zoro Mining Corp.
Zoro is an exploration stage company engaged in the acquisition and exploration of precious metal properties in Mexico and South America. Zoro’s main holdings are in the Don Beno, Escondida, Costa Rica, and Rio Sur Districts in Chile, and the Yura District in Peru.