Silver Elephant Mining identifies Gallium, Indium, Silver, Zinc and Lead at Pulacayo, Bolivia
Silver Elephant Mining Corp. [TSX-ELEF; OTC Pink-SILEF; FSE-1P2N] has identified multiple occurrences of gallium (Ga) and indium (In) in selected drill core at its flagship Pulacayo silver-lead-zinc project in Potosi department, Bolivia.
While conducting a routine review of the Pulacayo project drillhole database, the company recognized several wide intervals of gallium and indium mineralization from four diamond-drill-holes. Hole PUD 28 contained a 99-metre intersection grading gallium 27.8 g/t, indium 9.7 g/t, silver 21.2 g/t, zinc 1.1%, and lead 0.5%. Refer to original press release for complete assays.
The company is highly encouraged by the gallium and indium results and will continue to evaluate this potential given that gallium and indium are typically associated with zinc in polymetallic deposits similar to Pulacayo.
The Pulacayo project has a total indicated resource of 106.7 million ounces of silver, 1.4 billion pounds of zinc and 690 million pounds of lead published in the Technical Report dated October 13, 2020.
The four drill holes were drilled between 2003 and 2005 by a previous operator. Gallium and indium results have not been used in any resource calculation to date.
The wide gallium and indium intersection with consistent grades from PUD 28 suggests the presence of additional mineralization in PUD 28’s surroundings.
The company has reviewed all available data, selected 171 samples from 12 drill holes and submitted them to SGS Laboratories Services to assay for gallium and indium. The samples were selected for testing because of their proximity to PUD 28-31.
John Lee, CEO of Silver Elephant, commented: “There is lot of work ahead to establish Pulacayo as a potentially strategic source of gallium and indium supply to the North American market. We are cautiously optimistic of exploring this new dimension at Pulacayo to take advantage of increasing demand for gallium and indium (and rising prices) in high-tech 5G and LCD applications.”
Both indium and gallium prices are trading at approximately $10/oz (dailymetalprice.com), with prices doubling since 2020. On August 1, 2023, China began restricting exports of gallium and germanium as part of its broader export control rules, with a focus on limiting the exports of critical minerals, including gallium, germanium and graphite.
Indium is an essential ingredient in solar panels, touch screens and LCD panels while gallium is used in most advanced semiconductor chipsets in 5G applications with reduced power consumption and heat generation vs silicon counterparts.
Total annual world gallium and indium production is estimated by U.S. Geological Survey (2022) to be 15 million oz and 32 million oz respectively. China currently accounts for over 90% of the global gallium production and over 65% of the global indium production, as well as a substantial portion of the world’s exports.
Silver Elephant is a silver mining company, with its flagship Pulacayo-Paca silver project in production since October 2023.