El Tigre Silver Corp. (CVE:ELS) Wednesday provided a mid-year summary of its exploration and development activities at its El Tigre silver project in Sonora, Mexico.
The company noted that it has been active in advancing several activities including metallurgical studies and engineering of the proposed tailings processing facility, completion of a phase 1 core drilling program within a planned 5000 metre program, and exploration sampling and mapping of new exploration and development targets.
This has been a very exciting first half of the year for the company with significant advancements on our planned silver tailings production, confirmation of a viable disseminated low grade gold zone in the southern portion of the El Tigre vein system, and the identification of several new and exciting exploration targets on the overall large concession, said El Tigre president and CEO Stuart Ross.
I expect continued exploration to provide additional advancements in our corporate objectives.
Metallurgical recovery testwork for El Tigres four composited tailings samples was completed in May with the evaluation revealing that the tailings stockpile ranged from 750,000 to 800,000 tonnes with a grade range of 2.4 to 2.8 ounces per ton (oz/t) silver and 0.009 to 0.010 oz/t gold.
Metallurgical recovery estimated that the processing method selected would recover about 79% per cent of the silver and 94 per cent of the gold.
After determining the most efficient process to recover the silver and gold values remaining in the tailings stockpile, the engineering design of the proposed facility was completed in June and showed where each of the component parts was to be located in the production facility.
Concurrently with these activities, environmental permitting is underway, and El Tigre said environmental permitting activities are nearing completion.
El Tigre said that as potential quality and grade is conceptual in nature, there has been insufficient exploration at its silver property to define a mineral resource.
It is uncertain if further exploration will result in discovery of a mineral resource, the company said in a recent release.
The El Tigre mine was operated from 1903 to 1938, and it is estimated to have produced 70 to 75 million ounces of silver and 325,000 and 350,000 ounces of gold.
The company noted however, that a qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify any historical estimate at El Tigre as current mineral resources.
With respect to core drilling efforts, El Tigre said its geologists had identified a large target area of low-grade gold mineralization in the wall rocks of the El Tigre vein on Gold Hill.
The companys drilling program that was developed for 2012 was directed at the southern 1.2 kilometres of the El Tigre vein system.
It said the plan consisted of drilling 5000 metres in 25 core holes and was broken into two phases, with the first phase completed in June with 12 holes drilled completed for a total of 2293 meters.
El Tigre said phase 2 will begin in the fall 2012 and will focus on the southern flank of Mule Mountain with some fill-in holes on Gold Hill.
Assays for 12 holes have been previously reported and highlights include hole ET-37, which intercepted 10 metres of 336.3 grams per tonne (g/t) silver, including 0.58 meters of 2014 g/t Silver.
Drill hole ET-38 intercepted a shallow interval consisting of 1.6 metres grading 11.04 g/t gold as well as many short intervals of low-grade gold.
Drill hole ET-39 intercepted several long zones of low-grade gold, including 15.5 metres at 0.48 g/t gold, 27.2 metres at 0.68 g/t and 10 metres at 0.71 g/t gold.
With the program only halfway completed, the company said the results, thus far, have successfully identified several wide zones of disseminated gold mineralization associated with the El Tigre vein system, and it has also indicated very high grades of silver and gold within the El Tigre vein.
El Tigre said it has control of a large group of concessions that are now just beginning to be explored for new areas of gold and silver mineralization.
Just east of the main El Tigre district are two linear aster spectral anomalies parallel to the known veins that it said suggest high level expressions of undiscovered veins at depth.
Furthermore, the company said there is a one-kilometer-long zone extending from the southern vein district to the northern veins which have never been explored with drilling.
El Tigre said exploration on both these targets will continue for the balance of the year to define drill targets in 2013.
Further removed to the south and on trend with the main district are two areas that contain mineralized structures with gold and silver anomalies. The company said these two zones are being actively explored as time permits.
In the main El Tigre vein district, geologists have been sampling some previously ignored dumps with the view that some of them could be removed for processing at the planned agitation leaching facility, said the company.
It expects that this effort will be successful in finding good values of silver and gold in the dump material.
El Tigre Silver Corp. is a mining and exploration company that owns 100 per cent of eight mining concessions, comprising 43,098 hectares, located in the Sierra El Tigre, northeastern Sonora State in Mexico.
