New Pacific Metals drills 120 g/t AgEq over 306.95 metres at Carangas, Bolivia
New Pacific Metals Corp. [NUAG-TSX; NEWP-NYSE American] has released assay results of the last 29 drill holes from the 2022 drill program at its Carangas silver-gold project, Oruro department, Bolivia. The project is comprised of three Exploration Licenses (Granville I, Granville II and Colapso).
To date, assay results of all 115 drill holes drilled in 2022 have been received and released.
Of the 29 holes, 10 are deep holes which were drilled in different directions towards the Central Valley to define the limit of the gold mineralization system at depth. Drill results indicate the gold system is open to the north and north-east directions with these targets currently being drill tested as part of the company’s Q1 2023 drill program.
The remaining 19 holes are shallow and were drilled to define the near surface silver mineralization. All 19 holes intersected silver mineralization.
In addition to the drilling activities, results of an expanded 3D Bipole-Dipole IP-MT survey program completed in January 2023 have been received, showing multiple chargeability anomalies outside the current area of drilling. These new chargeability anomalies display a similar geophysical signature to those of the known silver-gold system and will be drill tested in future drilling campaigns.
Highlights of drill results for deep holes: DCAr0112 intersected a gold mineralization interval of 306.95 metres at depth from 359.55 metres to 666.5 metres, grading 1.2 g/t gold and 26 g/t silver, including 31.78 metres (411.65-443.43 m) grading 122 g/t silver, 4.11 g/t gold and 0.15% copper, and near surface silver mineralization intervals of 41.03 metres (55.97-97 m) grading 54 g/t silver, 0.25% lead and 0.57% zinc, and 75.1 metres (108.7-183.8 m) grading 27 g/t silver, 0.24% lead and 0.65% zinc.
DCAr0104 intersected a gold mineralization interval of 328.3 metres (233.75-562.05 m) grading, 1.07 g/t gold, 20 g/t silver, 0.14% lead, 0.25% zinc and 0.14% copper, and a near surface silver-lead-zinc mineralization interval of 228.25 metres (5.5-233.75 m) grading 21 g/t silver, 0.54% lead and 1.23% zinc, immediately followed by two more gold mineralization intervals intersected at further depth, 15.77 metres (652.17-667.94 m) grading 0.44 g/t gold and 0.12% copper, and 252 metres (693-945 m) grading 0.45 g/t gold and 0.13% copper.
DCAr0105 intersected a gold mineralization interval of 476.3 metres (324.7-801 m) grading 0.75 g/t gold, including 43.62 metres (510.38-554 m) grading 3.19 g/t gold, and a near surface silver-lead-zinc mineralization interval of 293.94 metres (5.16-299.1 m) grading 37 g/t silver, 0.57% lead and 1.3% zinc, including 38.99 metres (5.16-44.15 m) grading 134 g/t silver, 1.48% lead and 2.51% zinc.
Highlights of drill results for shallow holes: DCAr0141 intersected a near surface silver-lead-zinc mineralization interval of 110.15 metres (5.85-116 m) grading 136 g/t silver and 0.96% lead, including 6.92 metres (30.73-37.65 m) grading 693 g/t silver and 1.71% lead, and 24.63 metres (59.87-84.5 m) grading 197 g/t silver and 2.14% lead. Multiple historical underground mining voids for a total length of 16.39 metres were intersected in this hole.
DCAr0128 intersected a near surface silver-lead-zinc mineralization interval of 78.3 metres (7.7-86 m) grading 104 g/t silver, 0.74% lead and 0.59% zinc, including 33 metres (30.5-60.5 m) grading 226 g/t silver, 1.47% lead and 0.93% zinc. In addition, further down the hole to the end of hole, multiple shorter silver-lead-zinc mineralization intervals were intercepted.
DCAr0134 intersected 111.85 metres (114.4-226.25 m) grading 52 g/t silver, 0.25% lead and 0.59% zinc including 17.94 metres (198.96-216.9 m) grading 197 g/t silver, 0.49% lead and 0.91% zinc.
The 2023 15,000-metre drill program at Carangas is close to being completed. The results from this drill program, together with the results from 2021 and 2022 drilling, will be used to estimate an inaugural mineral resource to be completed in the second quarter of 2023.
A pilot 3D Bipole-Dipole IP-MT survey program was completed in the drilled area of West Dome-Central Valley-East Dome in September 2022, revealing that the blind gold mineralization system at the Central Valley overlays the strongest chargeability anomaly under the young sediments of the Central Valley.
Encouraged by the success of the pilot 3D Bipole-Dipole IP-MT survey program, an expanded 3D Bipole-Dipole IP-MT survey program was carried out at Carangas by Southern Rock Geophysics S.A. of Chile from November 2022 to January 2023. This expanded IP program covers the entire Carangas Basin of 29 km2, which is mostly covered by young sediments.
New Pacific’s flagship Project, the Silver Sand Silver Project, has released its inaugural preliminary economic assessment (PEA) results in January 2023. The PEA study shows a post-tax NPV (5% discount) of US$726 million with an IRR of 39%, underpinned by a total silver production of 171 million ounces over 14 years of mine life.
At the recently discovered Carangas Silver-Gold Project, a resource drilling program of more than 50,000 metres was completed in 2022. The third project, the Silverstrike Silver-Gold Project, had a 6,000-metre discovery drill program in June 2022.