Canada-based Solaris Resources is kicking off its first drilling campaign at its Warintza West copper prospect in southeast Ecuador, Kallanish reports.

The area where the drilling is under way is about 1 kilometre west of Warintza Central where recent drilling intersected more than 1 km of 0.71% copper equivalence from surface and significantly extended mineralisation beyond the limits of shallow historical drilling at the site.

Warintza West is one of five main targets with the 5 km by 5 km cluster of copper porphyries on the property. It has a similar surface expression as Warintza Central based in geochemical sampling and mapping, says the company with headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The area of new drilling features a molybdenum anomaly that measures 1,500 metres by 750 m and averages 64 parts-per-million molybdenum and a transported copper anomaly averaging 790 ppm, it says.

“We are delighted to have commenced the first drilling program outside of Warintza Central with drilling now taking place at Warintza West,” says president and ceo Daniel Earle in a statement. “We offer our deepest gratitude for the hard work of our employees in achieving this milestone. We look forward to building on this momentum and testing the Warintza East, El Trinche and Warintza South targets in the new year, in addition to testing the gold potential of the property.”

The company is awaiting assay results from six Warintza Central drillholes as the company has drilled 40,000 m. A third rig has been added to provide greater depth capacity beyond 1 km. The company has also completed the first detailed geophysical survey of the Warintza property with encouraging early results. Full, interpreted results are expected in the coming weeks.

It has also commenced auger drilling in the Caya gold anomaly, one of three large-scale gold anomalies identified northeast of Warintza Central.

The project is located about 85 km east of Cuenca. There are eight concessions that together cover about 268 square km. Estimates are that the Warintza Central area could yield nearly 124 m tonnes of inferred resources with a copper equivalent of 0.70%.