Joint venture partners Firetail Resources and Thunderbird Resources are ramping up work at their Picha copper project in Peru, following its recent selection in the prestigious BHP Xplor 2025 program.
Mapping, gravity surveys and a drilling program targeting large scale intrusion relation deposits are in full swing and a new target has been staked adjacent to the existing prospect.
As a 2025 BHP Xplor cohort member, the Picha project will benefit from a one-off, non-dilutive grant of up to US$500,000 (A$800,000) and Firetail will receive in-kind services, mentorship and networking opportunities with BHP and other industry experts and investors.
Thunderbird owns 30 per cent of the Picha project under the joint venture agreement.
Management’s focus has also shifted to generative exploration across the tenement package, leveraging off spectral and geochemistry data completed since 2021 with guidance from the Xplor technical team.
The BHP Xplor program was established in 2023 to support promising minerals explorers to accelerate the exploration needed to support the energy transition. Over six months period each year, BHP Xplor assists the development of technical, business and operational excellence within participating companies.
A new target in the northern part of the project area has been followed up with recent lithology, alteration and mineralisation mapping of the outcrops, with indications of a localised porphyry-style intrusion and associated significant scale mineralisation.
In addition to holding greenfield copper-silver territory through its 70 per cent holding in the Picha copper-silver project, Firetail holds the Charaque copper project in southern Peru.
Both the Picha and Charaque projects are hosted within the highly prospective Tertiary volcanic belt and are northwest extensions of the Tucari and Santa Rosa high sulfidation epithermal systems.
The Picha project is an underexplored copper-silver project in the Moquegua and Puno departments of southern Peru, in which the JV is generating multiple drill-ready targets. The project currently comprises 27 granted mining concessions for a total of 215 square kilometres.
Picha is within spitting distance of Buenaventura’s San Gabriel gold mine which has an indicated and inferred resource of 7.6 million ounces gold equivalent.
The project is considered highly prospective for several styles of mineralisation, including epithermal polymetallic veins, stratabound mineralisation, carbonate replacement deposits, skarns, as well as porphyry copper mineralisation
The next exploration steps include porphyry alteration mapping across known target areas, soil sampling over the new target area, geochronology and geochemistry mapping and a property-wide gravity survey to define current and further potential targets
The Peruvian project is shaping up as a significant copper-silver venture within a world-class gold-copper-silver province and the JV partners are optimistic that they have only scratched the surface at Picha.
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