Esquilache is a very large (25,000 hectares) exploration project in Puno, Peru. 

The logistics of the property are highly favourable. An excellent dirt road allows travel to Puno by SUV in 2¼ hours. A new road link via nearby Pichacane, soon to be completed, will reduce this time considerably.  The property has access to electricity from the regional grid and water supply is readily available.

There has been substantial production of silver and lead, commencing some time before 1679. Records of the production history are incomplete, but mining probably became sporadic from quite early in the history of the Republic until the 1940s. Modern mining, by Hochschild, lasted from 1953 - 1963. Since then, apart from minor scavenging operations, the mine has lain dormant.  There has never been diamond drilling from surface, anywhere in the mine area, or in the surrounding alteration zone.

For the last six months Vena has been exploring Esquilache while staking additional areas.  A large geophysics program was completed (130,000 metres) recently and an extensive geochem program is on-going to define the drill program with the permit process to commence shortly thereafter.

The mineralized structures are stockworks and rosary-type veins with varying dimensions from centimeters to over five meters in width and outcropping over 1.2 kilometres in length.  The oxide part in some of these structures had been exploited since the colonial days as previously reported in the Creston zone.

Thus far Vena is pleased to report that seven new significant polymetallic drill targets have been identified in the Mamacocha zone (Carmen, Candelaria, Silvia, San Martin, Santa Elena, Mamacocha, and Veronica) where 920 geochem samples have been gathered including a systematic channel sampling program that has returned values

This is a major, mineralized hydrothermal system. On site, widespread limonite colouration extends over an area of tens of square kilometres and persists through a vertical interval of 500m.