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Surigao: A Major Copper-Gold and Nickel District
Epithermal gold and porphyry copper-gold in the Surigao District
The Surigao Gold District is an historic gold mining camp, where there are literally thousands of epithermal gold showings, prospects and small scale artisanal mines. Based on the recognized Philippine copper-gold model, porphyry copper-gold systems would be anticipated as well, and this was confirmed with the discovery in 2000 of the Philex Gold/Anglo American Boyongan porphyry copper-gold deposit, and more recent discoveries.
Surigao - A Major Copper-Gold and Nickel District
Subsequent drilling at Boyongan outlined a major porphyry copper-gold deposit with a disclosed resource estimate of 219 million tonnes at a grade of 0.51 percent copper and 0.74 g/t gold. The Anglo-Philex joint venture more recently announced that a second porphyry system has been discovered a few hundred meters to the north of Boyongan, known as the Bayugo (or Kalayaan) porphyry prospect, as well as indications of several other porphyry systems nearby. Intensive drilling is in progress in the area.
The Surigao Gold District is attracting considerable international attention and is in the early stages of exploration for new porphyry copper-gold discoveries. Mindoro believes the Surigao Gold District will become a major copper-gold camp within a decade.
Nickel Laterite in the Surigao District
The Surigao Region is now emerging as a major nickel producing district, and there are at least eight nickel laterite deposits either in production or being developed, providing direct shipping ore (DSO) to markets and processing plants in China, Japan, Korea and Australia. Nickel laterite mines are in production at Cagdianao, Century Peak Mine, Nonoc, Hinatuan, Taganito, CNC Mine, CTP Mine, PGMC Mine, Oriental Synergy Mine, and the SR Metals (SRMI) Mine, with the last six mines commencing production just in the last one and a half years. SRMI is located immediately adjacent to Agata, and on the same nickel laterite trend. Just to the north of Surigao City, on Nonoc
Island, there are plans to construct a new processing plant at the Nonoc deposit, and Sumitomo has recently announced plans to construct a high-pressure acid-leach nickel processing plant in the Surigao District.
At its Agata Project, significant drill results have previously been reported by Mindoro from its nickel laterite prospect, and an initial National Instrument (NI) 43-101 resource defined recently. Potential areas of nickel laterite mineralization have been located on other Mindoro projects.
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