(Alliance News) - Great Southern Copper PLC on Wednesday celebrated encouraging results from its exploration programme at the Aurelia prospect, Especularita.

The mining company, which is focused on copper-gold and lithium exploration in Chile, said that tests had returned 76 rock chip assay results with grades of up to 6.8% copper. Further, 17 samples reported grades above 1% copper.

Reflecting on the results, Great Southern said that mapping had indicated multiple mineralised skarn horizons with strike length up to two kilometres, while samples from local artisanal mines only graded up to 7.3% copper.

Aurelia has now become the fourth prospect, after Victoria, to add to the pipeline of potential drill targets at Especularita, it added.

Looking ahead, Great Southern now plans to conduct further exploration at Aurelia.

This would include drone magnetics and petro-chemical surveys, and is being planned to assist the company's understanding of the copper mineralisation trends, in order to help plan for potential scout drilling next year.

"Our boots-on-ground exploration at Aurelia has delivered yet another high-grade copper target into our prospect pipe-line at Especularita. Being a replacement-type deposit, the Aurelia prospect further highlights the optionality in deposit style that the Especularita project enjoys as a whole," said Chief Executive Officer Sam Garrett.

"High copper grades and potential for scale combine to make this a very exciting target for the company and we look forward to advancing our exploration here towards drill-testing."

Great Southern Copper shares were trading 1.7% higher at 3.00 pence each in London on Wednesday afternoon.

By Holly Beveridge, Alliance News reporter

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