Quince Project

South American Iron & Steel has held 10% of the Quince Iron Ore Project for over 2 years, in early 2010 the Company decided to acquire the 90% of the Project it did not own.  To that end the Company entered into an Option Agreement with the owner to purchase Quince outright, the Option has been executed.

The Quince Conventional Iron Ore Project comprises over 1,100 hectares of Mineral Concessions and lies within the Atacama Fault in Region III of Chile approximately 1000 kilometres north of Santiago.  Quince is in the Chilean Pacific Iron Belt and was discovered by Asarco in the late 1990s and initially drill tested using six RC drill holes each 300m deep.  The drill holes produced massive magnetite iron ore. 

Quince sits 40km east of the deep water Port town of Chañaral and can be effectively serviced by the well established mining town 100 km to the south, Copiapó.  The project area is desert, but is well serviced with major roads and power adjacent to the site, also an experienced labour force is available in Chañaral and Copiapó.  Chañaral hosts a minor airfield and Copiapó hosts a major commercial airfield.

Quince Location Maps

Quince is defined by a high intensity magnetic geophysical anomaly some 13km long north south and 2km wide at its widest point, it is situated at the intersection of two major structural faults.  The Central Primary Zone which hosts a magnetic anomaly that is 5km long and 1.8km wide also hosts a strong coincident gravity anomaly.  It is this region that the Company intends to drill test in the coming months.

The Company will use a combination of Reverse Circulation and Diamond Core drilling to assess the mineralised zone.  Rock chips and core will be crushed and beneficiated to a concentrate using density and magnetic methods, the concentrate will be assayed by XRF techniques to determine the Fe content. 

Quince Central Primary Zone Magnetic Anomaly

Planned activities

• The Company will initiate a 2500m drilling program at Quince that may be extended to 10,000m once the initial assays are received.
• Environmental permitting will be established to facilitate additional drilling once the initial work program is completed.
• Additional geophysical data will be acquired once the preliminary drilling is completed.