Name: Los Calatos mine.

Location: The Los Calatos mine project is located in a well-defined copper-molybdenum porphyry belt, in southern Peru.

Controlling Company: Metminco.

Brief History: Metminco, incorporated in Australia, is an ASX- and Aim-listed exploration and mining company. Its broad portfolio of exploration projects, in Chile and Peru, mainly focuses on copper, but also enjoys significant exposure to molybdenum, gold and zinc. Metminco’s premier project is the 100%-owned world-class Los Calatos copper and molybdenum porphyry deposit.

Brief Description: The project comprises 27 exploration licences covering an area of 224 km2, and it occurs at an estimated altitude of 2 900 m above mean sea level. In July 2011, the Los Calatos project was declared a project of national interest by the Peruvian government.

Mining Method: Openpit, followed by an underground bulk mining operation.

Products: Copper and molybdenum.

Major Infrastructure and Equipment: Surface infrastructure will include a flotation plant, tailings dam, water and concentrate pipelines, power supply, a port, site facilities, workshops and an osmosis plant.

The underground mine infrastructure will consist of a twin decline system – one for personnel and equipment and the other for a conveyor system for the removal of ore. Four vertical raise-bored ventilation shafts will support the underground operation and ore will be crushed by a primary crusher, located underground.

Geology/Mineralisation: The project occurs within the major, north-west- to south-east-trending Paleocene/Eocene copper/molybdenum porphyry belt, in southern Peru, where the major controlling structural feature appears to be the Incapuquio fault system.

The mineralisation and alteration at the Los Calatos deposit are directly related to a multistage brecciated porphyry stock (diorite to granodiorite), as a subvolcanic manifestation of a multistage precursor pluton, which intruded a sequence of basaltic andesites and rhyolites of the Toquepala group.

The porphyry system was subsequently ‘intruded’ by a phreato- magmatic diatreme, with associated breccias and tuffs, and porphyritic plugs thereafter.

The age of the copper/molybdenum mineralisation at Los Calatos is 57 Ma to 52 Ma (Eocene), as is the case for the porphyry systems at the Toquepala, Quellaveco and Cuajone mining operations.

Resources: Total measured and indicated resources to a vertical depth of 500 m below surface as at February were 238-million tonnes, grading 0.35% copper and 0.022% molybdenum. Inferred resources were 66-million tonnes, grading 0.40% copper and 0.006% molybdenum.

Total measured and indicated resources sub-500 m below surface as at February were 766-million tonnes, grading 0.51% copper and 0.027% molybdenum. Inferred resources were 292-million tonnes, grading 0.52% copper and 0.018% molybdenum.

Prospects: Following the completion of a scoping study on Los Calatos, preparatory work has started to define the scope of the work required for the planned prefeasibility study and the associated costs for submission to the Metminco board.

Contact Person: GM investor relations, Steve Tainton.

Contact Details:
Metminco, tel +61 2 9460 1856, fax +61 2 9460 1857, email steve.tainton@metminco.com.au, and website http://www.metminco.com.au.