Drill permits are in place and Discovery will begin its drill program approximately five weeks ahead of the anticipated commencement date. Discovery's plan is to drill approximately 30,000-35,000m over the next 12 months with the focus of: (1) delineating and discovering the highest-grade phases and domains of the mineralised system; and (2) testing new high priority areas.
Taj Singh, president and CEO, said: "In just a few short weeks we have made great strides at Cordero. We have integrated our teams, progressed well through our review of historic drilling, planned our first holes, and accelerated the start-up of our drill campaign. We are very excited to be aggressively exploring one of the world's largest silver projects against a backdrop of rising silver prices and we are confident that our high-grade and high-margin approach at Cordero will add significant value."
Cordero is located on the eastern edge of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains within the northern extent of the Central Mexican Silver Belt. The project is also located in one of Mexico's premier porphyry and carbonate replacement deposit districts and is similar to well-known nearby bulk-tonnage precious metal operating mines and projects.
The bulk-tonnage potential of the Cordero deposit was first recognised in 2009 by Levon Resources Ltd and the resource area was tested with 132,000m of drilling in 292 holes. The resource estimate for the project makes it one of the largest undeveloped silver deposits in the world and thus providing exceptional leverage in a rising silver market. Within this extraordinary in-situ resource, Discovery has identified a compelling opportunity to delineate and expand areas of higher-grade silver that occur through the deposit.
The preliminary economic analysis (PEA) contemplates a 29-year conventional open-pit truck-and-shovel operation with a life-of-mine strip ratio of 0.94, with essentially all of the ore being sulphides. Testwork indicates the ore responds well to a standard crushing/milling/sequential lead and zinc flotation concentration process.
Discovery's goal is to undertake intensive drilling in advance of updating the resource and PEA. Discovery believes that a focus on drilling and defining higher-grade areas of the Cordero deposit and subsequent improved geological modelling and improvements in mine planning, mining methods, process engineering and logistics, may vastly improve the economics of the project by lowering capital and operating costs.
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