Please give our readers some information about Golden Arrow’s journey so far. What led you to where you are today?
Golden Arrow Resources (TSXV: GRG | OTCQB: GARWF | FSE: G6A) is a Vancouver-based exploration company that is part of the Grosso Group, a resource-focused management group that pioneered the mineral exploration industry in Argentina and has operated there since 1993. The Grosso Group has been involved with four mineral deposit discoveries in Argentina, the most recent of which was Golden Arrow’s Chinchillas Silver Project.
Golden Arrow advanced Chinchillas from discovery to development in just five years, and then successfully monetized the asset through a sale to SSR Mining. Golden Arrow now benefits from a significant equity interest in SSR Mining, which provides cash flow to finance exploration, with upside potential and leverage to gold and silver. The company is currently actively exploring in both Chile and Argentina, and we have a pipeline of more than 180,000ha of mineral projects.
You have a diverse portfolio of projects located in South America. Which project is the company currently focused on, and why?
We have several early-stage projects in Argentina that we are working on, but our focus is our new advanced-stage San Pietro Iron-Oxide-Copper-Gold-Cobalt Project, Chile. It’s a huge project covering 18,448ha of exploration and exploitation concessions in the Atacama region of Chile, just 100km north of the city of Copiapo in an active mining district. There is excellent infrastructure with a mining support town just 8km away, a highway right to the property and year-round access roads throughout the concessions. The project is situated between and adjacent to Capstone Copper’s Santo Domingo IOCG mine development project and Mantoverde IOCG mine properties, providing us with excellent models for exploration, and the potential for future synergies like those we identified when exploring at Chinchillas.
San Pietro has had a fair bit of historic exploration work, including over 34,000m of drilling, over 1,000 surface samples and multiple geophysical surveys, but that was all done some time ago and we have identified areas where new interpretations and additional work are expected to improve the prospects for resources. The project has multiple targets with high copper, and more cobalt than was previously recognized as of interest. The Rincones target was the primary focus of the historic work, and previous drilling is highlighted by intervals like 28m averaging 1.14% Cu, 0.12g/t Au, and 335ppm Co, in RA-12-DH-003.
Overall, we feel that San Pietro has incredible potential for new resources, and the advantageous infrastructure will allow us to move quickly to identify and advance those.
You have recently initiated a field programme at the San Pietro Copper-Gold-Cobalt Project, Chile. What is Golden Arrow anticipating to find?
The current programme has the two-fold goal of both refining the existing targets, and of reviewing the entire large property area to identify new targets. We have at least four areas that we already know are highly prospective, and we expect to get those to a drill-ready stage first. But the property has so much additional potential that we expect to generate new drill targets also.
Out of the four highly prospective areas at the San Pietro Project, which of these will you be drilling next and what sort of gold grades are you hoping for based on previous exploration?
We haven’t finalized our drill programme yet as it is imperative that we complete the thorough review of all the targets to maximize the returns from drilling. That said, the first drill programme may test more than one target area and we will come to those decisions later this year. As for gold, it really is a value-add for this project, as grades tend to run in the 0.1g/t range at the main target of Rincones.
What future exploration plans does Golden Arrow have planned?
The current programme includes detailed surface mapping and sampling and is expected to include trenching and an updated geophysical programme in the next six months. At the same time, the crew is engaged in re-logging much of the 34,000m of historic drill core. This work will modernize and build the database for the main prospects to refine the targets for the subsequent resource delineation drill programme.
From an investors’ point of view, what makes Golden Arrow an exciting prospect?
We are well-funded, with an exciting project that is poised for discovery. Our corporate and technical leadership have been successful both at making discoveries and monetizing them for shareholder gain, and we plan to do it again.
