AVM hits gold ~4.5km away from Happy Valley deposit in Victoria.

Our silver and gold Investment Advance Metals (ASX: AVM) just confirmed gold mineralisation at one of its regional prospects ~4.5km from its Happy Valley gold project in Victoria.

This is the first time AVM has drilled outside the main Happy Valley deposit and both of the holes hit gold.

AVM's project sits in the Victorian Goldfields across a ~13km gold trend with scattered historic workings on the project.

Most of AVM’s drilling on the project has been around the old mine shafts at Happy Valley - looking for extensions below the old mine shafts.

(source)

Today’s results came from the two prospects AVM is drilling along that ~13km trend - looking for repetitions of the style of mineralisation at Happy Valley:

(source)

The reason we think finding mineralisation along trend of Happy Valley matters is because its sets a precedent for a potential district scale structure on the project.

In our last note we wrote about how IF AVM can make new discoveries on step-out targets, the market could start to draw comparisons between it and ~$2.1BN Southern Cross Gold and ~$97M Falcon Metals, both operating in the Victorian Goldfields.

(There are no guarantees here as these are early stage maiden stepout holes, but it's encouraging to see gold in both holes at a brand new prospect)

Beyond Queen of the Hills, AVM has more of pending results from its Victorian Gold Project:

• There are two holes at the Sheards Prospect (1.5km west-northwest of Happy Valley) with assays pending. (source)
• Plus three deep holes at Happy Valley itself (AMD021-023) targeting extensions at depth have assays pending. (source)
• And one more hole (AMD024) targeting the shallow, up-dip portion of the system where historical mining barely scratched the surface. (source)

We are especially interested in those assays pending at Happy Valley:

(source)

What else does AVM have going on?

AVM has three silver assets in Mexico with a combined ~100M silver ounces in foreign resources across 3 projects:

• Guadalupe y Calvo (60.6M oz silver equivalent foreign resource estimate)
• Yoquivo (17.2M Oz silver equivalent foreign resource estimate)
• Gavilanes (22.4M Oz silver equivalent foreign resource estimate)

From Yoquivo last week, AVM released the results from hole “YQ-26-020” which hit silver from ~118m depths all the way down to ~355m depths in that hole.

Silver across a 230m interval with pockets of really high grade silver (as high as ~2,180g/t silver equivalent in some parts):

(source)

Seeing more silver at depth, extending the previously known mineralisation is a good sign - especially with AVM looking to put out a maiden JORC resource for the project in the coming weeks.

With silver now trading at ~US$67.50/oz (~3x the US$24/oz price assumed in the original resource) - we are hoping the resource announcement is an upgrade on the existing 17.2M ounce silver equivalent foreign resource estimate.

The higher silver price also means AVM is looking into a bulk-tonnage open-pit mining scenario for the project - whereas this type of project would typically be developed as an underground mine that targets the high grade pockets of mineralisation.

We covered the potential bulk tonnage open-pit scenario here: AVM drilling for a JORC resource on silver-gold project this month

So in coming weeks we should see the updated resource from the recent drilling here, with the on ground exploration to move to the Gavilanes project.

What's next for AVM?

Maiden JORC MRE for Yoquivo 🔄

AVM is targeting delivery of the first JORC-compliant Mineral Resource for Yoquivo in the coming weeks. (source)

This will incorporate all the drilling from the current program, plus all of the historical core resampling work AVM’s done over the past few months.

Here are the milestones we are tracking for the Yoquivo asset:

✅ Resource extension drilling completed (21 diamond holes)

✅ Historical core resampling program (4,500m — results received)

🔄 Geological modelling and MRE compilation underway

🔲 Maiden JORC MRE release (coming weeks)

Gavilanes maiden resource work commencing 🔲

AVM also flagged recently that exploration work would start at its other project in Mexico (Gavilanes where AVM has a foreign 22.4M ounce silver equivalent resource).

This is a second project with a foreign resource that also needs JORC conversion, so two potential resource catalysts on the horizon.

Victorian gold project - drilling ongoing 🔄

AVM is also drilling right now at its Victorian gold project.

We are looking forward to seeing if AVM can extend the mineralisation on that project at depth and district wide scale - with today's results confirming gold 4.5km away from the historic mine with more drilling underway. (source)

AVM has released results from here today which included high grades over narrow intervals, but have expanded the mineralised area to 4.5km from the historic Happy Valley Mine which opens up district scale potential (source)