Orosur nears completion of Pepas drilling

(Sharecast News) - Orosur Mining said drilling at its Pepas gold prospect in Colombia was nearing completion as the company moves toward an initial NI43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate, while first drill holes at its El Pantano project in Argentina have confirmed the presence of a previously undrilled mineral system. At Pepas, part of the Anzá project in Colombia which Orosur now owns outright, the company reported assay results from five holes in the final stages of infill drilling.

The AIM-traded firm said the highlight intercept came from hole PEP067, which returned 83.7 metres at 4.29 grams per tonne gold from surface, including higher-grade intervals of 17.45 metres at 7.12 grams per tonne and 10.8 metres at 8.06 grams per tonne.

Orosur said the hole was drilled within the existing deposit envelope, while other holes outside the envelope intersected lower-grade halo mineralisation as expected, helping to better define deposit boundaries and structural controls.

The company said external consultants visited the site in November to complete quality assurance and quality control checks and to advance work on a new NI43-101 technical report, which would include the Pepas mineral resource estimate.

Based on their recommendations, several additional holes were added to the programme to improve confidence in the geometry and extent of high-grade zones.

Orosur said it expected drilling at Pepas to conclude within days, with resource modelling and the technical report targeted for completion in January.

Metallurgical testing using material from a dedicated large-diameter drill hole was under way at ALS Global in British Columbia and is expected to feed into the resource estimate.

"Pepas is now in the final mile of its MRE process and the pieces are coming together for a January report. In the meantime, we are lining up targets for when the rig is freed up later in December," said chief executive Brad George.

At El Pantano in Santa Cruz province, southern Argentina, Orosur reported that early-stage reconnaissance drilling has successfully intersected geological features consistent with a low sulphidation epithermal system.

Seven holes had been completed so far, with samples from the first five submitted for gold assay and multi-element analysis.

The company said several holes showed encouraging vein textures and mineralogy, including colloform banding, which was commonly associated with the core of low sulphidation epithermal systems, although preliminary interpretation suggested current drilling may still be above the main boiling zone where higher grades typically occur.

Orosur said the primary objective of the initial drilling programme was to determine whether a mineral system was present at El Pantano, describing the confirmation of such a system as "an extremely positive and unusual result for the first drilling program on a grass roots project."

Drilling was progressing faster than planned and is now expected to run through to the end of January 2026, after which all new and historical data will be compiled to design the next phase of exploration.

George said drilling at El Pantano had carried significant exploration risk but had delivered the outcome the company was seeking.

"Drilling at El Pantano, as with any undrilled project, was high risk, but we have hit what we hoped to hit - a previously unknown mineral system," he said.

"Now we need to focus in, and given the scale of the system, that is a challenge ... but a good challenge."

At 1332 GMT, shares in Orosur Mining were down 5.38% at 22p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.