CRU/CESCO-Canada's Exeter in talks with potential buyers

* Exeter has signed confidentiality agreements with buyers

* Interested parties include Barrick, Newmont, Kinross

* Deal could be reached within next 12 months

SANTIAGO, April 6 (Reuters) - Exeter Resource Corp (XRC.TO) is in talks with a number of companies interested in acquiring the exploration company and its Caspiche gold-copper-silver project in Chile, a top company official said on Tuesday.

"There are lots of groups interested. We have confidentiality agreements signed with Newmont (NEM.N), Barrick (ABX.TO), Kinross (K.TO) and a couple of Chinese groups," the company's chief geologist, Glen Van Kerkvoort, said in an interview with Reuters.

Exeter recently split itself in two and spun off its Cerro Moro gold-silver project in Argentina into a new company.

"This is what we have set it up for and this is why we have split the company. It's working toward a takeover of Exeter," Kerkvoort said, adding that a potential deal could be struck within the next 12 months.

Exeter has the option to earn 100 percent of Caspiche from Anglo American (AAL.L). Exeter has now met all the required commitments to exercise this option.

The Caspiche project is located in the Maricunga Belt of Chile, between Barrick and Kinross Gold's Cerro Casale gold-copper deposit 10 kilometres to the south and Kinross Gold's Maricunga Mine 15 kilometres to the north.

Caspiche is a gold-copper porphyry system, a type of deposit common to many of the world's largest open pit gold-copper mines.

In a recent note to clients, Canaccord analyst Wendell Zerb said, "Caspiche represents one of the largest Au-Cu-Ag assets discovered in the last decade and its significance should draw the attention of numerous interested parties." (Reporting by Euan Rocha, Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)