SilverCrest Announced New High-Grade Discovery at Las Chispas

SilverCrest Metals announced drill results for its newest high-grade discovery, the Babi Vista splay vein, and in-fill drilling for the northwest extension of the Babi Vista vein at its Las Chispas Property in Sonora, Mexico. The current drill program for Babi Vista is designed to expand high-grade precious metal mineralization along-strike and to-depth of the vein.

The company explained that the Babi Vista splay is located in the southeast extension of the Babi Vista vein and appears to be a splayed quartz argentite-rich vein in the hanging wall of Babi Vista. In-fill drill results confirmed high-grade mineralization in the vein to the northwest. SilverCrest will use these results for re-classification of mineral resources for consideration in the upcoming maiden reserves during the ongoing feasibility study. Drill results for the updated resources to be included in the feasibility study were cutoff on Oct. 16, 2020, the company noted. While drilling for the Babi Vista splay and Babi Vista vein, the Babi Vista Footwall, Granaditas and several previously unknown and unnamed veins were also intersected.

“We continue to find new high-grade opportunities at Las Chispas, with yet another record-breaking intercept and vein discovery. Results from the Babi Vista splay highlight continued potential for high-grade resource growth in the vicinity of our current underground work. With five drills active at Las Chispas, we expect to see further results in the coming months from both expansion and in-fill drilling beyond the completion of the feasibility study,” said Eric Fier, SilverCrest’s CEO.

During an interview with MBN earlier this year, the SilverCrest team explained how exploration is a major element in the company’s strategy. “We have over 30 veins on site at Las Chispas. About 15 of those will be taken into account for our feasibility study. It will be interesting to move forward and actually drill these other targets. People often drill for years, trying to get their resource and reserve numbers as high as they can before moving to production. Contrarily, we want to put Las Chispas into production and use some of the money it generates to continue with exploration. It is a dual growth pathway consisting of production and exploration,” said Rossy Fier, Vice President of Exploration.

Furthermore, the Las Chispas project has strong community engagement practices in place to mitigate any social risks and include its communities in value generation. “We have a strong social license to operate around the Sonora River, where we have been working since 2003. We provide employment: 80 percent of our workers are locals. By locals, we mean people from Arizpe, the municipality where Las Chispas is located, as well as other nearby towns like Banamichi and Aconchi. A number of locals had left for the US to find jobs. Others had been working at Cananea. Thanks to SilverCrest galvanizing the local economy, many of them have judged it beneficial to return to their communities of origin,” explained María López, SilverCrest’s Regional Manager.