Silver Bull Resources (TSE:SVB) (NYSE MKT:SVBL) Thursday said it will release an updated resource estimate and preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on its flagship Mexican Sierra Mojada silver-zinc project in 2013.
Looking ahead, Silver Bull will release its fourth NI 43-101 resource update on the project in the first quarter of 2013, which will include drill results from the 2012 underground twinning program.
Based on the updated resource report figures, the company will complete the maiden PEA on the Sierra Mojada project in the third quarter of this year.
The PEA will incorporate ongoing work on metallurgical optimization, hydrology, and geotechnical studies and detailed mine plan studies.
After the PEA is completed, Silver Bull said the remainder of 2013 will be dedicated to mine feasibility study programs in contemplation of an initial feasibility study on the project in 2014.
“We at Silver Bull remain extremely bullish on the fundamentals for both silver and zinc,” the company said in a release Thursday.
“The world's financial troubles are not likely to go away anytime soon and silver (along with gold) will continue to be a haven for wealth preservation.
"Furthermore, with the imminent closing of a number of major zinc mines expected in the next three years, coupled with both a lack of new zinc mines coming on line to replace this lost production and an expected increase in zinc demand, we see a tightening in the zinc supply over the short to medium term.”
Last year at Sierra Mojada, located in the historic Sierra Mojada mining district in Coahuila State, northern Mexico, the company completed 19,400 metres of surface drilling. Mineralization remains open to the north, south, east and westerly directions of the deposit.
Drilling, aimed at defining and extending the Centenario and Shallow Silver Zone of the project, revealed a massive sulphide zone grading 16.98 per cent zinc, 5.45 per cent lead and 57.29 grams per tonne (g/t) silver over 8.45 meters in a previously undrilled area 500 metres to the north of the Shallow Silver Zone.
The company also released a third NI 43-101 resource update on the project in July last year, increasing the size of the silver resource to 72.1 million ounces of silver in the measured and indicated category, and 10.4 million ounces in the inferred category.
Silver Bull noted that the estimate resulted in a 39-per-cent increase in the resource size over a period of six months of drilling.
Also in 2012, the company completed a 6,500 metre underground twinning drill program that defined a high grade silver and high grade zinc zone, which it said should have “a significant impact” on the upcoming resource calculation.
In an ongoing full-scale metallurgical program, the company last year unveiled preliminary metallurgical results that recovered up to 89 per cent silver, with average recovery of 83 per cent.
Additionally, Silver Bull collected $3.4 million of historical value added tax balances from the Mexican government dating back to 2007, which helped fund exploration activities through 2012. It also completed negotiations with various mineral claim owners to allow for future development of the mineralization at Sierra Mojada.
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