Mineralised outcrops at the Celen prospect show porphyry style quartz-magnetite-chalcopyrite veining along with disseminated magnetite-chalcopyrite with consistently rich copper, gold, silver and molybdenum mineralisation present in outcrop over a large area 2km by 1km. Celen is some 7km from the company's Cuenca Loma gold-silver epithermal prospect.

"The recent discovery of this large copper gold target at Celen … exhibits all of the geochemical and geophysical hallmarks of a large porphyry system," said exploration and country manager Jason Ward in a statement.

Mineralised zones exhibit strong magnetic anomalism while the porphyry style veins have 1:1 values of copper:gold with proportionate silver and molybdenum, which is diagnostic of a strong Andean porphyry copper gold system.

Of the 72 rock chip samples taken, 60 samples (83%) returned grades greater than 0.6% copper equivalent including an average molybdenum content for all 72 samples of 51.95ppm. Significant rock chip sampling results include 4.32% copper, 4.51 grams per tonne gold, 20.8gpt silver and 9.99ppm molybdenum.

Shares in SolGold are trading up at 20.8 pence, valuing the company at £385 million.