Zacatecas Silver (TSXV: ZAC) has expanded the gold resource at its Esperanza project, reporting an updated estimate that pulls in considerably more tonnes and contained metal at a lower average grade.
The revised figures lift the pit-constrained measured and indicated resource to 1.15 million ounces of gold equivalent. The company puts that 21 percent above its December 2022 estimate on contained gold-equivalent ounces, with the tonnage rising 49 percent over the same comparison.
The updated estimate breaks down as follows.
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- Measured: 12.85 million tonnes at 0.92 g/t gold equivalent (0.89 g/t gold and 6.5 g/t silver) for 378,000 ounces of gold equivalent (367,000 ounces of gold and 2.70 million ounces of silver)
- Indicated: 32.56 million tonnes at 0.74 g/t gold equivalent (0.70 g/t gold and 9.2 g/t silver) for 776,000 ounces of gold equivalent (737,000 ounces of gold and 9.67 million ounces of silver)
- Inferred: 11.2 million tonnes at 0.57 g/t gold equivalent (0.53 g/t gold and 11.2 g/t silver) for 206,000 ounces gold equivalent (190,000 ounces gold and 4.02 million ounces silver)
Inferred tonnage rose 28 percent against the prior estimate, with the company noting that some earlier inferred material has moved into the higher confidence measured and indicated categories.
Esperanza is being advanced as a conventional open pit, oxide heap leach operation. The estimate uses a 0.13 g/t gold equivalent cut-off alongside metallurgical assumptions of 75 percent gold recovery and 25 percent silver recovery.
“This update places Esperanza at the upper end of the global oxide heap-leach developer peer group on grade, with our Measured category running at 0.89 g/t gold in the densest-drilled, near-surface portion of the deposit,” said Chief Executive Officer Eric Vanderleeuw. “Combined with simple, conventional heap-leach metallurgy, a low strip-supportive geometry, and a low AuEq cut-off, this is exactly the kind of grade and shape advantage that translates into a low-capex and lower-cost operation — and that’s what the PEA will aim to quantify.”
Zacatecas Silver last traded at $0.09 on the TSX Venture.
