Duran Ventures enters into 10-year mineral lease to feed the Aguila Norte plant

Duran Ventures (DRV.V) has signed an agreement with a local Peruvian which gives it the right to explore and extract mineralized rock from certain concessions for a period of 10 years. This agreement is structured as a mineral lease and as the project has all the paperwork needed to extract ore, this could be a welcome source of mill feed for the company's Aguila Norte plant, which is located just 90 kilometers away (a three hour drive).

According to Duran, there's a well-defined structure on the property which hosts veins containing gold and silver over a strike length of at least 700 meters. There's a shaft on the property which has reached a depth of 41 meters and gives access to three short drifts. Samples taken at the end of a drift on the 24 meter level returned gold values of 5.12 g/t gold and in excess of 1,500 g/t silver over a width of 60 centimeters.

This width is consistent with the historical reports which indicated vein widths of 30-80 centimeters with an average gold grade of 8.8 g/t and an average silver grade of 412 g/t. These grades were pretty much confirmed later when a second group took some samples for metallurgical purposes. Should Duran's final due diligence confirm the potential of the property, the company will execute the mineral lease which will entitle the owner of the underlying property to a 2.5% NSR (with a minimum payment of US$100,000 per year), unless it purchases the property for US$400,000 within the first five years of the lease.