Home » Exploration » Project Highlights

Project Highlights

Compañía Minera Coronado S. A. de C. V. (“CMC”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Santa Fe Metals Corp., is focused on exploration of the precious metals and Carbonate Replacement Belts (“CRD”) of north-central Mexico.  This area is not only an exceptional mineralogical province with many world-class mines in operation or under development, it also has excellent infrastructure, access to a trained workforce, and a well defined and regulated mining law.

CMC currently has two projects under exploration/development:

Cuatro Cienegas, Copper, Coahuila:

CMC has acquired a 100% interest in the concessions comprising the Cuatro Ciénegas property, which total 3,408 ha, subject to fulfillment of certain obligations including royalty payment.

Cuatro Ciénegas is a high-grade copper project (with silver, lead & zinc) slated for production in late-2009.  The Company intends to develop underground exploration drifts as part of its exploration program of this flat lying sedimentary copper system.  Material gathered will be processed on site in a conventional acid heap leach operation to produce cement copper which can be shipped directly to a smelter for refining.  This type of process has existed for centuries and is a reliable, cost-effective way of producing copper.  Recovery of copper from copper oxides using this process is typically in the range of 85%.  Other metals, however, are not recovered in the process.  Any revenues generated from the operation will be used to fund exploration activities on this and other Company properties.  Information gathered from the process can be used to establish resource estimates at Cuatro Ciénegas. The Company cautions that no Feasibility Study has been completed at this time. The process is primarily for exploration and there is no certainty that its planned operation will be cash flow positive.

In a recently completed Technical Report, the author, Dr. Bersch, P. Geo., concluded that the mineralization found in the Cuatro Ciénegas project area is sediment-hosted, stratiform copper-silver-lead-zinc mineralization of the Kuperschiefer-type (commonly referred to as “red-bed”).  Deposit comparisons include Spar Lake (Troy), White Pine (Michigan, USA), Kupferschiefer district (Germany and Poland), and Zambia-Congo copper belts.  Tabular deposits of this type have been known to extend laterally for tens of kilometers and vary in thickness from tens of centimeters to several meters.  Such lateral potential is indicated on the Don Indio concession by mines and prospects along a strike length of at least five kilometers and in El Granizo for approximately two kilometers on the opposite side of the valley.  Previous exploration has identified copper-silver mineralization in the Don Indio concession at true thicknesses up to 23 meters.  At El Granizo, the author estimated copper mineralization over a thickness of ten meters.  Results of previous exploration conducted by others in historical workings at Don Indio have been reported and include a weighted average of 95 samples at 3.3% copper, and 117 g/t silver (from level 4 in the Pilar Grande mine); and a weighted average of 20 samples from level 1 in the San Marcos West mine at 3.0% lead, 5.0% zinc, and 53 g/t silver.

Lobos, Silver-lead-zinc and gold, Zacatecas-Durango:

CMC has an option to acquire 100% of the Lobos property subject to a 2% NSR. Lobos has an excellent infrastructure being located in central Mexico very close to a town with a population of about 20,000. It has paved road access within less than one hour from the project and a first class dirt, all weather road leading through the project.

The geological setting and mineralization is very similar to the world class Peñasquito deposit, acquired by Goldcorp in 2006, approx. The size of the Peñasquito deposit has only become known publicly during the past year. This size of deposit makes exploration for similar types of ore systems advantageous.

There are no records of drilling, nor exploration using modern exploration techniques, methods or technology, having ever been carried out on the Lobos property.  CMC recently completed a 2,000m preliminary diamond drilling program for which results are still pending.