Toronto, Ontario–(Newsfile Corp. – February 5, 2018) – Duran Ventures Inc. (TSXV: DRV) (“Duran” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into an agreement (the “Agreement”) to purchase and process high grade copper sulphide mineralized material from Otuzco Copper Mining Corporation S.A.C. (“Otuzco”), a private Peruvian corporation with operations in Northern Peru. A fundamental term of the Agreement is to jointly share the profits by unifying operations. CurrentlyOtuzco’s main property has small-scale artisanal miners extracting copper sulphides from several adits. Duran will purchase the mineralized material at cost from Otuzco and will support Otuzco to ensure the extracted mineralized material is properly documented and transported to Duran’s Aguila Norte Flotation Plant (the “Plant”). Otuzco will shortly have permits in place for the extraction of the mineralized material. The first transported mineralized material to the Plant is expected in late February but is dependent on weather conditions and receipt of final permits.
The Agreement allows Duran to purchase up to 1500 tonnes per month with minimum copper grades of 5.0% copper in sulphides. In 2017 Duran’s Plant processed 301.32 tonnes of this mineralized material containing chalcocite and covellite with an average head grade of 5.15% copper. Results were considered very favourable, producing 42.99 tonnes of copper concentrate grading 35.29%. Deleterious elements such as arsenic and antimony in the concentrate were low at 0.1%. Otuzco holds the mineral rights to the property and has agreements with the owners of the surface rights and local communities to continue the small-scale mining. Otuzco’s intention is to eventually mine the copper sulphides once weather improves and permits are in place.
Otuzco will allow certain small-scale miners to continue to operate. Duran will assist Otuzco on the technical side of the operations. The transportation route to Duran’s Plant is very favourable as it is mostly by asphalt highway. The Agreement withOtuzco allows Duran to first recover all operating costs related to the processing of this mineralized material. The main costs include the purchase cost of the mineralized material, including delivery to the Plant, and transportation of the concentrates to the port facilities in El Callao. Duran’s Plant will charge the normal processing fee (“Maquila”) to Otuzco as part of the costs. After recovery of the operational costs Duran will share profits 50/50 withOtuzco.
Duran is currently in discussions with several metal traders to provide working capital to purchase the mineralized material on a revolving credit facility. Duran is conducting several in-house laboratory metallurgical tests on the mineralized material to optimize copper recoveries in order to produce high quality copper concentrate. Jeffrey Reeder, Chief Executive Officer of Duran, commented: “We are excited to enter into this type of profit sharing agreement as building these Peruvian partnerships with miners of all sizes will establish Duran as a dynamic growth-oriented company. We are also very pleased with the progress made by First Quantum Minerals on our Panteria Cu-Au porphyry project and the recent agreement with IAMGOLD on our Minasnioc Au-Ag project. 2018 should be an exciting year for Duran.”
Jeffrey Reeder, P.Geo., and a qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101, has prepared, supervised the preparation, or approved the scientific and technical disclosure contained in this news release.
