BKB samples high grade stockpiles around project area
Our 2025 Small Cap Pick of the Year Black Bear Minerals (ASX: BKB) has just released sampling results from waste stockpiles at its Shafter Silver project in Texas, USA.
BKB’s Shafter project has a 17.5Moz @ 259g/t silver foreign resource estimate plus ~$150M in site infrastructure (including a processing plant).
The project was last producing between 2012-2013 when the silver price was ~US$30/oz, before falling to under US$20/oz.
It was able to produce at those prices because the average grades are high…
For context, the average resource grade here is 259g/t vs 208g/t at the La Encantada mine owned by First Majestic.
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Today, BKB put out sampling results from four waste dumps - leftover from previous mining runs, returning silver grades up to 1,570g/t, 5% lead and 4.4% zinc.
Typically, waste stockpiles are considered uneconomic and leftover by operators of a project, but with the silver price running to new all time highs and BKB having processing infrasutrcture in place - we think the stockpiles could make for interesting material to get the plant humming again.
The stockpiles may not have made much sense to process at US$20 silver, but at US$57 silver, things could look a lot different (Assuming those grades continue throughout the stockpiles).
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We do note that these were selective samples, the average grades across those stockpiles are unknown at this stage.
Here is an overview of where these stockpiles sit in relation to the processing plant (blue box inset further below):
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The initial stockpile sampling suggests there is some high-grade polymetallic material including silver.
So the next step is bulk sampling and RC drilling in early 2026 to confirm grade, volume, and suitability for future resource estimates and potential for processing.
At the historic workings, BKB plans to run systematic sampling to test for the remaining high-grade material along 700m of strike.
Also a review of historic drill core and new mapping will help to show the potential for epithermal leakage mineralisation and help to generate shallow drill targets.
BKB confirmed today that it will finalise and release exploration drill programs in the coming weeks.
BKB now owns two projects in the US outright:
1. Independence Gold Project (next door to 240k oz gold per year producer N.G.M) with a 1.37M ounce gold resource located in Nevada, USA.
Our latest article on that: JBY: +95% gold recoveries from high grade “skarn” resource
2. The Shafter project contains a 17.5Moz @ 259g/t silver foreign resource estimate plus includes ~$150M in site infrastructure and we wrote more on the acquisition here (before the name change):
Our 2025 Next Investors Small Cap Pick of the Year: James Bay Minerals (ASX: BKB).
What do we want to see next from BKB?
We recently launched a new BKB Investment Memo which you can read here.
Here are the four objectives we are tracking across BKB’s assets:
Objective #1: Drilling at BKB’s US silver project
We want to see BKB drill out, extend and then define a JORC resource estimate over its silver project in Texas, USA.
Milestones
🔲 Sampling to identify drill targets
🔲 Drilling commenced
🔲 Assay results
Objective #2: Maiden JORC resource estimate at US silver project
We want to see BKB upgrade and convert its 17.5M ounce foreign resource estimate at its US silver project into JORC compliance. We are looking for the resource to get bigger during the conversion process, whilst maintaining a relatively high grade.
Milestones
🔲 Maiden resource estimate
🔲 Increase to the resource size
Objective #3: Resource upgrade on US gold project
We want to see BKB drill out and upgrade the resource at its US gold project in Nevada.
Milestones
✅ Drilling started
🔄 Assay results
🔄 Resource upgrade
Objective #4: Permitting and feasibility studies on both projects
Ultimately, we want to see BKB take both assets through the permitting process and into development. For the US gold project we want to see permitting and economic studies. For the silver project we want to see full permitting and a mine restart study get completed.
Milestones
🔲 Permitting for US silver project
🔲 Permitting for US gold project
🔲 Economic studies on US gold project
🔲 Economic studies on US silver project
