Each one in plain English, with the numbers worked through for a shareholder.
4 Apr 2022drilling result● NeutralMajor
El Triunfo drilling into geophysical targets found in 2021: TR009 returned 247 metres averaging 0.4 g/t gold equivalent from 3 metres depth with 14 metres at 2.5 g/t AuEq inside it, and TR010 gave 1.2 metres at 7.7 g/t AuEq within 45 metres at 0.7 g/t. The same filing announces a letter of intent to sell Battery Metals Royalties 45% of Mega Thermal Coal for $6.3 million in Battery Metals shares - the Ulaan Ovoo and Chandgana coal mines in Mongolia, the only assets that produced anything in this company's cached record.
Two programs in one filing. Regional drilling of 9 holes for 3,251 metres within 3 km of the Tajo vein system produced one narrow hit, 2 metres at 299 g/t silver 1.5 km north of the vein. At Paca, 8 holes for 1,717 metres: the four testing geophysical anomalies to the east returned close to nothing - PND119 gave 39.0 metres at 5 g/t silver - while PND123, testing the northern extension, cut 27.0 metres at 159 g/t silver from 3 metres depth including 1.5 metres at 565 g/t, in near-surface oxide.
The Gibellini assessment: an open-pit heap leach with a 25.4% after-tax return and $260.8 million of cumulative after-tax cash flow, initial capital of $147 million, 10.2 million lb of vanadium pentoxide a year at an all-in sustaining cost of $6.04/lb and a strip ratio of 0.18 to 1. Those figures assume US$10.00/lb; the European price three days before publication was $9.60.
1,972 metres of the 2,000 metre Pulacayo program are drilled at El Abra, Veta Quattro and Pacamayo, with visible galena, tetrahedrite and sphalerite logged at Pacamayo between 490 and 560 metres depth but no assays yet. El Triunfo grab samples ran up to 294 g/t silver. Bolivia's geological survey puts historic production from the Tajo vein system at 678 million oz of silver.
The Minago technical report itself, filed the same day as the announcement with thirteen qualified-person consents attached. The report exhibit in the cached copy is a scanned image file with no machine-readable text.
The Minago technical report is filed, dated 20 August and effective 2 July 2021, prepared by Mercator with AGP on pit optimisation and Stantec on permitting. John Lee now signs as chief executive as well as executive chairman, and the company describes itself as "a premier mining company of battery metals" rather than a silver miner.
The Minago estimate lands five months after the acquisition: 722 million lb of contained nickel measured and indicated and 319 million lb inferred, grading 0.74% nickel, effective 2 July 2021. That grade is well above the 0.52% of the historic estimate the company bought, and the project has already absorbed more than $40 million of exploration, study and permitting spending by earlier owners since 2000.
A 2,000 metre, ten-hole program begins at Pulacayo to test a 1,400 by 250 metre induced-polarisation anomaly that has never been drilled, running parallel to and 300 metres from the Tajo vein system, with first targets at El Abra, Veta Quatro and Pacamayo. The release also carries a stray paragraph about the Gibellini vanadium project that has nothing to do with Pulacayo.
Wood and Mine Technical Services are commissioned to write a preliminary economic assessment for Gibellini, described again as part of the spinout strategy. Vanadium pentoxide had risen 52% since January to US$8.2/lb.
Mercator, AGP and Stantec are commissioned to produce the first current resource estimate for Minago, expected in June, and the release says in its own headline that it is being prepared to support spinning the project out into a subsidiary, Flying Nickel Mining Corp.
Indium and gallium assays for the first ten Sunawayo holes, held back from the earlier releases: SWD002 carried 87 g/t indium and 7 g/t gallium with 48 g/t silver over 9.0 metres (252 g/t AgEq) inside 31.0 metres at 119 g/t AgEq. Adding the two by-products raises that 31-metre interval from the 67 g/t AgEq reported in February to 119 g/t, and the company notes that primary indium and gallium deposits are uncommon.
Holes SWD011 to SWD014 at Sunawayo returned 2.0 metres at 645 g/t silver, 5.12% lead, 1.34% zinc and 0.19% copper (813 g/t AgEq) inside 5.0 metres at 380 g/t AgEq. Everything else in the batch ran between 30 and 72 g/t silver equivalent over intervals of one to eighteen metres, and the indium and gallium assays were still outstanding.
Ten holes into Sunawayo and all mineralised. The best is SWD010 with 3.0 metres at 421 g/t silver, 0.92% lead and 0.90% zinc (469 g/t AgEq) inside 10.0 metres at 183 g/t AgEq; SWD009 gave 2.0 metres at 50 g/t silver and 7.67% zinc (290 g/t AgEq). The high grades arrive in two- and three-metre slices inside much longer low-grade intervals.
The first two holes ever drilled at Sunawayo: SWD001 cut 137.0 metres at 36 g/t silver from surface, and SWD002 31.0 metres at 44 g/t silver, 0.39% lead and 0.48% zinc (67 g/t AgEq) from 1 metre. Long, shallow and remarkably uniform, but at roughly a thirteenth of the 477 g/t silver of the best surface sample that had justified buying the property.
The Pero results are one narrow hit surrounded by nothing: PUD286 returned 4.0 metres at 393 g/t silver, 3.79% lead and 0.88% zinc (518 g/t AgEq), while the rest of that hole and all of PUD285 and PUD287 ran between 15 and 48 g/t silver equivalent over the intervals reported. The release calls it a new discovery.
A 940 metre program at the Pero target southeast of the Pulacayo deposit is finished with assays pending. The target came from surface samples of up to 200 g/t silver several hundred metres south of the Tajo vein trend, which the company reads as the vein being faulted southward there. The same filing announces the start of a 2,300 metre maiden drill program at Sunawayo.
All five oblique Paca holes hit mineralisation, but thin and low grade: the best was PND115 with 66.0 metres at 48 g/t silver, 0.10% zinc and 0.80% lead (75 g/t AgEq), while PND118 returned 112.0 metres averaging 15 g/t silver (50 g/t AgEq). The release describes it as a new discovery zone.
The maiden El Triunfo drill program returned wide, low-grade gold carrying useful base metals. TR007 cut 98.9 metres at 0.37 g/t gold, 22.71 g/t silver, 0.74% zinc and 0.58% lead (1.04 g/t AuEq) from 13 metres, including 48.9 metres at 1.45 g/t AuEq; TR008 gave 6.4 metres at 1.60 g/t gold and 56.49 g/t silver (3.05 g/t AuEq). The gold-equivalent figures assume 100% metallurgical recovery, which no operation achieves.
An amended version of the Pulacayo 2020 technical report, dated 12 November and still effective 13 October 2020, filed while the prospectus was in the market. The cached exhibit is a scanned image file with no machine-readable text, so what the amendment changed cannot be established from the copy held here.
The company announced it had filed both the Pulacayo technical report and a preliminary short-form prospectus for the bought deal, which had grown to 20,000,000 shares at C$0.40 from the 15,000,000 announced a week earlier.
The 2.9 MB Mercator technical report supporting the October estimate, effective 13 October 2020 and prepared by Matthew Harrington, Michael Cullen and Osvaldo Arce, filed with the SEC in full.
A small 545 metre, five-hole program at Paca is finished, drilled diagonally to test structures oblique to the east-west trend that all 19,688 metres of previous Paca drilling had followed. Assays expected in November.
The rebuilt Pulacayo Project estimate reports 106.7 million oz of indicated silver with 1,384.7 million lb zinc and 693.9 million lb lead in 48.04 million tonnes, plus 13.1 million oz inferred. The leap from the 30.4 million indicated oz of the 2017 estimate comes from re-cutting the deposit as an open pit at a 30 g/t silver-equivalent cut-off and adding Paca alongside Pulacayo: the Pulacayo sulphide in-pit indicated block is 24.6 million tonnes at 76 g/t silver, 1.63% zinc and 0.70% lead, against 455 g/t silver, 3.19% zinc and 2.18% lead in the 2017 underground estimate. Three and a half times the ounces at roughly a sixth of the grade.
All 48 first-pass chip and grab samples from surface outcrops and adits at Sunawayo returned anomalous silver-lead values, ten of them over 100 g/t silver or 10% lead, the best at 477 g/t silver and 20% lead, across four target areas along an 11 km trend. These are surface samples: no hole had been drilled anywhere on the property at this date.
First sampling at the newly bought El Triunfo: 37 of 103 chip samples from surface outcrops and old adits ran at or above 1.0 g/t gold equivalent, the best being 3.90 metres at 2.22 g/t gold and 113 g/t silver (8.30 g/t AuEq), across two blocks spanning 750 metres of strike. A 1,000 metre maiden drill program starts the same day. These are surface chip samples along artisanally mined workings, not drill intercepts.
Infill drilling inside the Pulacayo deposit, rather than step-outs, and it worked: PUD283 returned 102.0 metres grading 145 g/t silver, 1.05% lead and 2.56% zinc (255 g/t AgEq), including 5.0 metres at 1,565 g/t silver, 8.25% lead and 3.85% zinc. PUD284 gave 66.7 metres at 182 g/t AgEq. True widths are estimated at about 72% and 57% of core length respectively.
Mercator is engaged to rebuild the Pulacayo and Paca resource estimates, updating the October 2017 report for new metal prices, the 2019-20 drilling and, in the company's own words, "constraint optimization such as cut-off grades and strip ratios" - the change that would triple the reported ounces three months later. Bolivia's national COVID quarantine had lifted in late June, though Uyuni, the nearest town, was still closed.
The complete results show the step-out program was largely a miss. Sixteen holes for 2,598 metres produced one material intercept, PUD267, already announced in January; PUD268 returned 2 metres at 20 g/t silver and PUD274 2 metres at 93.5 g/t. The company attributes the poor returns to geology and estimates PUD267 extends the resource about 80 metres west. The standing indicated resource it is stepping out from is 30.4 million oz at 455 g/t silver, 3.19% zinc and 2.18% lead.
The first hole drilled at Pulacayo since 2012, PUD267, cut 10 metres grading 147 g/t silver, 9.8% zinc and 2.0% lead (539 g/t AgEq) inside 35.5 metres at 230 g/t AgEq from 31.5 metres. It sits 83 metres west of a 2008 hole that returned only 15.1 g/t silver at similar depth, so the company reads it as extending the deposit westward. A previous operator had already put 268 holes into Pulacayo between 2008 and 2012.
The company's centre of gravity moves to Bolivia. First-phase drilling at the Paca silver deposit returned PND110 with 89.0 metres of core length grading 279 g/t silver, 1.28% zinc and 1.17% lead (378 g/t silver equivalent) from 9 metres depth, including 12.0 metres at 1,085 g/t silver from 16 metres. PND107 gave 54.0 metres at 238 g/t AgEq and PND109 28.0 metres at 281 g/t AgEq. True widths are estimated at about 77% of the reported core lengths.
