WCE kicks off 4,000m drill program at the Elizabeth Hill Silver mine

Our silver Investment West Coast Silver (ASX: WCE) has just started drilling at its Elizabeth Hill silver project in WA.

WCE’s RC drill program across 4,000m is targeting shallow extensions north and south of the old Elizabeth Hill mine.

That’s the mine that produced ~1.2M ounces of silver at an average grade of ~2,194g/t from just 16,830 tonnes of ore.

The mine shut in 2000 because silver was US$5/oz. Today silver trades at ~US$73/oz..

For anyone who has ever been to the Perth Mint - the glorious giant silver nugget in the museum section was also found at Elizabeth Hill:

(source - our photo)

We are Invested in WCE to see it:

1. Drill out and identify silver resources in and around the existing Elizabeth Hill workings.
2. Drill out regional targets (and hopefully discover an Elizabeth Hill repeat)

So this next round of drilling could move WCE closer to achieving both of our targets.

So far, most of WCE’s drilling has been focused in and around Elizabeth Hill - where there is an ~46.8kt @ 2,700g/t silver for 4.05Moz remnant resource (non JORC compliant). (source)

Here is what WCE’s managed to define so far prior:

(source)

The holes from the drilling program beginning today are targeting a depth of roughly 150m from surface, but are further to the north of the known mineralisation looking for extensions at depth.

So the key thing with this RC drill program is that all holes are designed to intersect the Munni Munni Fault within ~150m of surface, see the plan from today's announcement below:

(source)

Drilling is expected to take four to six weeks, with assay results expected to be received throughout Q2.

A busy few months ahead for WCE

WCE is running multiple programs from now through to the end of May.

• RC drilling has started,
• Geophysics (borehole EM and IP surveys) kicks off end of March, and
• Diamond drilling to test the down-plunge extension of the orebody is set for early April. (source)

So there's going to be a lot of news flow over the next couple of months.

WCE also included a picture of the drill rig on site for this drilling:

(source)

What’s next for WCE?

Near-mine and regional exploration 🔄

The recent AC drilling results from immediately to the north of the known mineralisation/mine are worthy of followup and WCE is now drilling with a deeper capable RC rig. WCE said the results are to be used in open pit resource planning and a scoping study. This drilling began today. (source)

WCE is also looking to follow up on the magnetic drone survey results which identified 20 structural targets, with several of these showing along strike on the same fault running through the mine.

These results match prior soil sampling and AC drilling, so the magnetics program is being expanded across the broader project area set to get underway by the end of March (source) and an IP survey to be run on the current area to help rank the confirmed targets for future drilling. (source)

Update on processing negotiations 🔄

In a prior exploration update, WCE said it was in discussions with Artemis Resources who own the Radio Hill processing plant, ~20km away.

Late last year WCE confirmed that these negotiations have progressed to a MOU to look further into processing ore at this plant.

The plant has been idle for some years now and was previously being refurbished by Artemis but due primarily to a fall in nickel prices, has not been utilised for several years so there exists a conveniently located opportunity.