Fortuna Silver drills 18.3 g/t gold over 11.9 metres at Seguela, Ivory Coast

Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. [FVI-TSX; FSM-NYSE; F4S-FSE] provided an update on its Sunbird exploration program at the 90%-owned Seguela gold project, located in Ivory Coast. The government of Côte d’Ivoire owns the remaining 10% interest.

Paul Weedon, Senior Vice President of Exploration, commented, “Following the release of Sunbirds maiden Inferred Mineral Resource containing 350,000 gold ounces in March 2022, expansion drilling has continued to grow the high grade mineralized footprint at depth and beyond the initial maiden resource envelope.” Weedon continued, “Results such as 28.2 g/t gold over 3.5 metres from drill hole SGRD1408 and 12.6 g/t gold over 7.7 metres from drill hole SGRD1422 highlight the open nature of the deposits mineralization.”

Weedon added, “Further drilling is underway to test these extensions, with drill hole SGRD1423, a further 100 meters down plunge, intersecting several points of visible gold. In addition to the exploration success at Sunbird this field season, target generation elsewhere on the Seguela property has continued to grow the portfolio with several new very encouraging prospects identified.”

Sunbird Prospect drill highlights include drill hole SGRD1405 that returned 18.3 g/t gold over an estimated true width of 11.9 metres from 168 metres. SGRD1408 returned 28.2 g/t gold over an estimated true width of 3.5 metres from 351 metres. SGRD1421 returned 6.1 g/t gold over an estimated true width of 8.4 metres from 252 metres. SGRD1422 returned 12.6 g/t gold over an estimated true width of 7.7 metres from 319 metres.

Subsequent to the release of Sunbirds maiden Inferred Mineral Resource of 3.4 million tonnes averaging 3.16 g/t gold containing 350,000 gold ounces, expansion drilling further down-dip and down-plunge has continued to intersect high grade mineralization beyond the initial optimized pit shell used to constrain the maiden Inferred Mineral Resource.

Regional exploration across the Seguela Project has continued to generate attractive targets along the key structural corridors and building off regional soil and auger sampling campaigns, geophysical anomalies and field mapping.

Winy is located approximately 5 km south-east of Antenna, a first pass trench sampling program returned 52 metres at 1.54 g/t gold which was following up a regional soil anomaly and 25 rock chip samples ranging from 0.13 g/t gold to 68.2 g/t gold.

G7 is located approximately 14 km south-east of Antenna, a 196-hole, 5,008-metre, reconnaissance air core drilling program returned a best intersection of 32 metres at 1.26 g/t gold in hole SGAC7763 from 8 metres with a follow up 6-hole, 504-metre, scout reverse circulation (RC) drilling intersecting 18 metres at 1.54 g/t gold from 76 metres in drill hole

Barana is located 8 km north of Antenna, a greater than 2-km-long +50 parts per billion gold auger anomaly has been identified, with a 759-hole, 14,204 meter, scout air core drilling program returning up to 7 meters at 2.25 g/t gold from 12 metres in hole SGAC629 and 20 rock chip samples ranging from 0.01 g/t gold to 9.28 g/t gold.

Folly is approximately 7 km south of Antenna, additional wide spaced 30-hole, 2,451-metre, scout RC drilling program (200-metre line spacing) following up previous reconnaissance RC drilling returned encouraging results along a greater than 1.2-km strike zone interpreted as the same structural corridor as hosting the Antenna deposit approximately 1 km north. Results include 1.5 metres at 12.79 g/t gold from 88 metres (drill hole SGRC1189), 8.2 metres at 1.69 g/t from 22 metres (drill hole SGRC1252) and 3.0 metres at 7.90 g/t gold from 88 metres (drill hole SGRC1317).

Follow-up drill testing of these prospects along with further drilling at the high grade Gabbro North prospect to follow up previous high-grade results including 4 meters at 23.0 g/t gold from 109 metres in drill hole SGRC1236 and 8 metres at 39.0 g/t from 88 metres in drill hole SGRC1152 is planned for the second half of 2022.

Fortuna Silver Mines has four operating mines in Argentina, Burkina Faso, Mexico and Peru, and a fifth mine under construction in Côte d’Ivoire.