- Drilling at Shafter in Texas has returned “exceptional” silver results.
- Extensional drilling has now expanded the project’s known mineralised footprint outside the current resource model.
- Black Bear will leverage these results into MRE update.
- Mine-restart studies have also gotten a boost.
Black Bear Minerals (ASX:BKB) plans to use high-grade silver and polymetallic intercepts from its ongoing drilling program at the Shafter Silver Project in Presidio County to advance its technical studies toward a maiden JORC Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) and progress its Rapid Mine Restart Study.
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Resource validation drilling in the northeast region of the project successfully twinned historic underground holes, Black Bear told shareholders today.
Diamond drillhole SFD019 intercepted a continuous tabular mineralised body within the Mina Grande Formation, returning 8.8 metres at 307 grams per tonne silver, 0.7% lead, 0.8% zinc, and 0.1 g/t gold, from 259.1 metres. The standout hit included 1.4 metres at 958 g/t silver, 2% lead, 1.9% zinc, and 0.2 g/t gold.
The intercept in SFD019 proved thicker and higher-grade than the historic twinned hole (SU61), which previously recorded 7.9 metres at 210 grams per tonne silver.
Black Bear’s CEO, Dennis Lindgren, said that the returned results were “exceptional” and go a long way to highlighting the project’s polymetallic potential.
“As we progress toward a maiden JORC MRE and advance restart studies, we continue to see potential value beyond the existing 17.5Moz at 289g/t silver-only Foreign MRE, and believe Shafter is demonstrating the qualities of a significant near-term U.S. silver development opportunity,” he said.
Extensional drilling outside the existing Foreign MRE has also expanded the known mineralised footprint. On the western edge of the historic Presidio Mine, SFD017 was terminated early due to an underground void but concluded with a bottom-of-hole intercept of 0.5m @ 140g/t Ag from 94.8m.
The current Shafter Foreign MRE is evaluated strictly on a silver-only basis, holding 17.57 million ounces of silver at an average grade of 289g/t Ag across the Measured, Indicated, and Inferred categories.
Black Bear now plans to keep focusing on multi-commodity potential, including zinc, lead, and gold, to expand that resource estimate in the next update.
BKB shares will open at 62.5c today.
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