Power Metal makes solid drilling progress at Silver Peak

Exploration company Power Metal Resources updated the market on the ongoing 2021 first phase diamond drilling exploration programme on the Silver Peak Project in the Canadian province of British Columbia on Thursday.

The AIM-traded firm said 25 diamond drill holes were now planned, and to date 12 holes had been successfully cored and completed.

Drilling was currently progressing on the 13th hole.

The 25-hole programme was planned from individual drill sites, with some sites having two holes per site drilled at 55 and 75 degrees, respectively.

Those would provide two vein intersections at different orientations, giving the company important structural information on the Victoria vein.

The Victoria vein had been intersected in all holes drilled to date.

Based on visual inspection of core box photographs Power Metal had received, and from reports provided by the drilling team, the drill core obtained from the Victoria vein was “extremely” oxidised, similar to outcrops of the Victoria vein found within the upper and lower portals on the project.

That included due diligence samples collected by Power Metal in 2020, which returned 0.5 metres at 14,937 grams of silver per tonne, 3.05% copper and 11.95% lead.

The Shaw and Hilti portable drills being used for the first phase drill programme had provided “excellent” core recoveries through the Victoria vein thus far, the company said, averaging 90% across all holes, with minimal loss noted in one of the holes, where recoveries of 80% were logged.

Power Metal said the first phase of drilling was expected to be completed by mid-August.

Silver Peak includes the Eureka-Victoria Silver Mine, which is covered by the first ever Crown-granted mineral claim within the province.

The company said the project is located on Silver Peak Mountain, which is six kilometres south of the TransCanada Highway and the town of Hope.

It said the project and the historic mine workings are accessed via multiple “well-maintained and recently-upgraded” mining and logging access roads, which connect to the TransCanada Highway.

“Excellent progress has been made thus far in the 2021 diamond drilling at Silver Peak with 12 holes now completed, high core recovery and evidence that the drill core is extremely oxidised,” said chief executive officer Paul Johnson.

“Heavily oxidised core was the characteristic of samples previously tested which delivered the bonanza grade silver results from the due diligence channel sampling undertaken last summer.

“The data collected from this programme will provide valuable information on the project which will be critical as we prepare for our planned second-phase deep drilling programme targeted for late summer 2021.”

At 1547 BST, shares in Power Metal Resources were up 0.05% at 2.1p.