Antilles hunts for copper in 'overlooked' Cuba

Antilles is on the cusp of getting two low-cost operations into construction, but speaking to investors today Grainger brushed over what would usually be a focus for any microcap to talk about the larger, long-term potential that has been overlooked since the Russians departed during the cold war. Antilles (then known as PanTerra Gold) is one of the few explorers to go where others have feared to tread, first with the La Demajagua development in 2020, and more recently, the rapidly advancing El Pilar gold-copper project and the Sierra Maestra Copper Belt.Copper focusThe focus of the company has increasingly moved towards copper as the potential of its assets has become apparent, despite a relative paucity of work. Grainger said the company's relationships with its 50% government-owned partner, GeoMinera, was a key advantage. "They lack the skills and technology to do modern exploration, so they've basically let us have free reign to look at the data and go where we want," he said. "Because you work with government you don't have delays with permitting. It is some of the easiest and fastest exploration I have seen, it's a delight." Previously drilled in the 1990s, El Pilaris has a gold-copper oxide cap, and is a near-term development option that could fund the search for what looks to be fertile porphyry systems at depth.A tiger by the tailGrainger describes Cuba as being vastly underexplored, despite some very large deposits, with the 200km-long Sierra Maestra belt being "probably most prospective area for copper deposits". The belt is host to El Cobre, described as being the oldest operating copper mine in the Americas. While records dating back to the 1500s are incomplete, Grainger estimates it was a plus-350 million tonne deposit originally. The belt contains Eocene-age porphyry targets similar to those being worked up in Ecuador, but there's been no real work since the 1960s. "You would think this belt would have been blitzed for exploration, but it hasn't," he said. "This is a prolific and underexplored volcanic arc, and we think we have a tiger by the tail," he said. El Cobre isn't a porphyry deposit and has been classed as a VMS deposit, although Grainger sees all the hallmarks of a Peruvian-style manto deposit. Prospecting has delivered evidence of a high-sulphidation system over an 8sq.km area that could be the top of a porphyry system. Antilles was able to secure areas along strike from El Cobre it believes has the highest prospectivity within two months. It aims to start ground geophysics early next year.Significant surprisesDrilling for porphyries can be a tricky business, so Antilles wants to drill and rank its targets before getting too excited, which is what it has done at El Pillar, where past drilling just clipped the deeper mineralisation below the oxide zone. It has two other geophysical targets within the 2sq.km of surface alteration, Gaspar and Camilo, which it plans to test. Drilling at Gaspar has just started, and isn't even deep at just 200m, but the rocks appear to be extremely altered, indicating a larger and "much more dynamic system" with copper sulphides, breccia and classic porphyry veins. "We weren't expecting that in the first hole," Grainger said. It means Antilles is rethinking its planned drilling program. "We don't want to put eggs in baskets too early. We need to figure out where to focus. We need to be flexible with exploration, so we can find the main mass of the porphyry," Grainger said. Drilling continues on the El Pilar oxide cap, which starts from surface to 80m at its deepest. Metallurgical work suggests there are no "nasties", and the ore can produce a clean concentrate grading at least 50 grams per tonne gold and then 25% copper. The deepest holes suggest there is mineralisation below the cap, with limited drilling returning 134m at 1.23% copper from 49m, including 18.5m at 5.5%, and 62m at 1.55% from 38m, over "fingers of early porphyry" such as 25m at 0.95% from 167m.Near-term productionThe junior started the quarter with just A$1.7 million, but believes it can finance La Demajagua and the Nueva Sabana open pit at El Pilar with loans and pre-sales. Antilles expects to start generating cash from both deposits from 2025. While Nueva Sabana has no resources and no economics yet, La Demajagua alone should generate around $30 million in annual surplus cash over a nine-year life. Antilles also has a $45 million legacy claim against the Dominican Republic that could help fund copper exploration. Antilles shares have traded at 2.4-5.6c over the past year. At 2.6c the company was worth $15 million.

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