Kootenay Silver sees more potential to the north at Promontorio

Kootenay Silver (CVE:KTN) revealed Wednesday the first drill results from its 30,000 metre resource expansion program at its Promontorio silver project in Mexico, indicating potential to the north may be better than previously thought. 

Shares of the company were up by 2 cents to 89 cents this morning.

The company unveiled the results from the first 8 holes of the program today, with all holes outside of the current resource boundaries - at intervals of 50 to 100 metres. 

Notable holes included DH 121-12, which returned 62 grams per tonne (g/t) silver equivalent over 47 metres, including 94 g/t silver equivalent over 17 metres. 

A number of high grade silver equivalent intercepts, including 152 g/t over 5 metres, were found within 20 metres of 36 g/t silver equivalent in hole DH 124-12. 

Meanwhile, hole DH 125-12 returned 119 g/t silver equivalent over 6 metres and 94 g/t over 14 metres, including 199 g/t over 3 metres. 

"We are very pleased with results from step-out drilling," said CEO James McDonald. 

"Mineralization in the Northeast Zone is widespread and continues to  remain open to the north, northeast, east and south. 

"DH 125 and 122 indicate potential to the north may be better than previously known. Wide intervals of altered diatreme facies (units) with mineralized  intervals encountered over drilled lengths to 380 meters again confirm  the system is very large and robust."

The company said drills are now operating in areas to the west and southwest of the pit resource, focused on expanding ounces. 

Further drilling is also planned for the Northeast Zone to define the size of the mineralization.

The 30,000 metre drill program, which is the  largest drill campaign conducted on Promontorio so far, is designed to  substantially increase the overall size of Promontorio's contained  silver resource and to fast track the path to a production decision.

A PEA study is planned for the end of the drilling campaign, and will include an updated resource estimate with results from the latest drilling. The report will then form the basis for the pre-feasibility study at Promontorio. 

The news today follows the unveiling of an updated resource estimate at Promontorio in August, which saw a near tripling of the resource size. 

In total, the updated measured and indicated mineral resource at Promontorio contains an estimated 61.679 million ounces of silver equivalent (AgEq), with another 14.469 million ounces of AgEq categorized as inferred.

The significant increase in resources was due to extensive additional drilling of over 37,900 metres. Kootenay said over 22,000 samples were used in the modeled wireframes compared to just over 3,000 for the previous model.