Can you elaborate on the recent investment agreement between Camino Corp and Denham Capital to acquire the Maria Cecilia Porphyry1 Complex in Peru?

We saw an opportunity with Denham Capital, a US$10 billion resource-focused investment fund, to acquire a porphyry district in Peru. It is an asset that Denham had invested US$28 million into and were looking for a group to take the project forward through the next stage of exploration. We bought the project outright and own 100%, with Denham becoming our largest shareholder. Denham has the capability to fund larger transactions and is interested in both building and acquiring, so we intend to collaborate on future projects. In return, Denham is investing in a management team that has a track record of successfully building companies that have a large institutional following.

Which of Camino’s three assets would you consider its flagship project?

Los Chapitos is currently our flagship property. At Los Chapitos, we have already conducted over 20,000 meters of drilling in a very specific area over the past four years, and our target for this year is to continue drilling along a strike of the 8 km Diva structure that controls copper mineralization. We are in a unique position to drill towards a maiden resource since previous drilling campaigns have realized very good intercepts of copper such as DCH-034 with 95 m of 0.85% Cu. We are targeting more near surface oxidized copper for an envisioned low capital SXEW copper operation. However, we will also test for primary sulphide mineralization over our 220 km² land package.

We planned our drilling campaigns towards more discovery drilling. For instance, Maria Cecilia is an acquisition that comes in a porphyry district with several porphyry centers.  Two porphyrys have been drilled with over 30,000 metres of drilling complete. Our interest is to drill the third porphyry center – Maria Cecilia, which we consider to be the heart of the porphyry district. We will be conducting 100% of the discovery drilling at this third porphyry, Maria Cecilia, in 2021.

Plata Dorada is our third asset, but it is still early stage and does not fall into the same category as Los Chapitos and Maria Cecilia, however, we have recently expanded our land position at Plata Dorada after seeing exceptional results in our surface sampling program. Exploration success would lead to an envisioned mid-size high-grade operation at Plata Dorada.

What did exploration results from Camino’s fall 2020 drilling campaign at Los Chapitos reveal about the project, and what are the company’s drilling plans for 2021?

Our 2020 drill campaign at Los Chapitos continued to make significant intercepts of near-surface copper oxidized mineralization at the Adriana zone (64.5 m of 0.6% Cu including 12 m of 1.05% Cu) to add to potential new tonnage for a maiden resource. Secondly, we have identified areas of significant alteration and copper mineralization at zones like Lourdes that extend over 1 km² along our main mineralized Diva fault structure. This alteration suggests a large amount of geological fluid flow that could potentially host a large deposit for discovery.

We are permitted to drill the southern extension, extending approximately 4 km to the south of the Adriana zone. We are also advancing permits to drill the same geology and Diva structure towards the north and expect the permits to be achieved by July 2021.  Maria Cecilia is also expected to be permitted in mid-2021.  We are fully funded for our exploration and drilling strategy for 2021 that will start with 6,000 metres of drilling.

Where will Camino focus its efforts for the rest of 2021, and what would you like to achieve by 2022?

In May 2021 we closed an oversubscribed private placement for US$7.5 million, which will be used to support our exploration activities. We have been fortunate to be able to continue advancing our projects throughout the pandemic and acquire a new property, and we are on target to start new drilling campaigns in July 2021.