Peru's Pico Machay to Launch 3,000-Meter Drilling in Early November

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 26, Canadian mining exploration company Xali Gold announced that it has formally submitted an application to Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mines for approval of the Environmental Technical File (FTA) for the Pico Machay gold project, and has signed a contract with local drilling contractor GEMA to carry out an initial 3,000-meter diamond drilling program. The project is located in the Huancavelica Region of Peru. The initial drilling program is planned to deploy two drill rigs, with the target of commencing in early November, subject to the progress of regulatory approval.

Drilling contractor GEMA has prepared two diamond drill rigs for the initial program, with HQ-size core drilling planned and a designed depth of approximately 150 to 300 meters per hole. Of the initial 3,000-meter drilling program, approximately 2,000 meters will be used for verification drilling in the historical resource area, involving twin drilling of approximately 10% of existing reverse circulation holes to verify historical exploration data and further determine the distribution and controlling factors of gold mineralization. The remaining drilling work will support resource evaluation and mine-site exploration.

The Environmental Technical File submitted this time covers a larger drilling program, applying for 20 drilling platforms and a cumulative maximum of 20,000 meters of drilling. The initial 3,000 meters represents the workload under the currently signed contractor agreement, while subsequent drilling will proceed based on resource evaluation results and project approval progress. The company plans to use drill core and assay data to re-estimate the Pico Machay gold resource and to conduct a preliminary economic assessment to study subsequent mine development options.

The approval process has previously completed the community participation procedure. On October 7, Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mines, together with local authorities, organized a public information session for the project to collect opinions from residents in the project's area of influence. Xali Gold completed the preparation of the environmental application documents on October 21 and formally submitted them for approval after obtaining the relevant meeting records. The company expects the approval review to take approximately 10 days, after which on-site construction arrangements will be adjusted based on feedback from the competent authority.