Brought to you by BULLS N’ BEARS
Doug Bright
Advance Metals has drawn strong encouragement from the results of precisely targeted re-sampling of historic core at its high-grade Yoquivo silver-gold project in southwestern Chihuahua, Mexico.
Results have confirmed widespread elevated silver-gold values and revealed previously hidden high-grade intervals across multiple holes.
Past operators of the project had only selectively assayed less than 50 per cent of drilled core, leaving a substantial volume of core unsampled.
That glaring gap in the database has handed Advance a rare, low-cost opportunity to unlock potential additional mineralisation without turning a single metre of drilling.
‘The extensive, low-cost historic core sampling has proven to be extremely successful.’
Advance Metals managing director and chief executive officer Adam McKinnon
The re-sampling campaign has already delivered assays for over 3500 metres of core. The work has initially focused on the Pertenencia area of the project, which hosts an existing foreign resource estimate of 17.23 million ounces of silver equivalent at 570 grams per tonne (g/t) silver equivalent.
Encouragingly, the investigation has identified a growing number of drill sections in the Pertenencia foreign resource area, with near-complete sampling from the top to the bottom of each hole.
Combined with the historical analytical data, the resampling has revealed many exceptionally broad intercepts and contiguous envelopes of medium-grade silver-gold mineralisation in the central portion of the deposit.
This new information contrasts sharply with the previous narrow, high-grade focus of sampling that supported the 2023 foreign estimate. That study was based on a 200g/t silver equivalent cut-off using metal prices of US$24 ($A34) per ounce for silver and US$1840 (A$2651) per ounce for gold.
Advance Metals managing director and chief executive officer Dr Adam McKinnon said: “The extensive, low-cost historic core sampling we’ve undertaken at Yoquivo has been proven to be extremely successful. We have now identified multiple zones of previously unrecognised silver and gold mineralisation in the Pertenencia area – without having to complete any new drilling.”
With silver and gold now trading at significantly above their 2023 levels, around $A103 per ounce for silver and $A6932 per ounce for gold, the project’s economics have shifted markedly.
These more recent prices clearly support lower cut-off grades for the resource estimate and mining optimisation, potentially converting a greater proportion of the broader mineralised envelopes into viable resources.
The new parameters also open the door to previously unlikely bulk-tonnage open-pit mining opportunities, in addition to expanding ore envelopes proposed for traditional high-grade underground mining.
The company has fast-tracked analysis of incoming results as part of a full-scale reassessment of the deposit ahead of its upcoming JORC-compliant resource upgrade. Modelling is slated to begin in early March, with the updated resource targeted for release by the end of the same month.
Meanwhile, diamond drilling has continued at Yoquivo, with assays for multiple holes at Pertenencia and in the broader region currently pending.
Recent results from Advance’s deep diamond hole on the east-southeastern margin of the foreign resource area intersected four distinct silver-gold zones, including two stronger intervals.
The first of those intervals delivered 8m at 79 grams per tonne (g/t) silver equivalent from 160m. That run included a 1.2-metre section assaying a respectable 295g/t silver equivalent.
The second deeper interval gave up 7.52m at 58g/t silver equivalent from 400m, while two deeper intervals of 0.25 and 0.5m delivered 1159g/t and 284g/t silver equivalent from 416.75m and 492.75m downhole depth, respectively.
With precious metals prices holding strong and Yoquivo’s growing scale, Advance appears well placed in the near term to unlock a significantly larger resource, potentially boosting project economics and sharpening its strategic appeal.
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