Mitre Mining experiences breakthrough quarter at Cerro Bayo with doubled resource and extensive drilling

Mitre Mining (ASX: MMC) is enjoying a great start to 2024 at its Cerro Bayo silver-gold project in Chile.

In releasing the results of what chief executive officer Tim Laneyrie describes as a “pivotal quarter in the company’s history”, Mitre wrapped up the acquisition of the high-grade Cerro Bayo project in Chile, doubled its resource, made significant discoveries and commenced its maiden drilling program there.

“Mitre has made the dream start to its ownership of Cerro Bayo, doubling the silver and gold resource in such a short time,” Mr Laneyrie said.

“And it is clear we are well on the way to another resource update, which will be underpinned by the spectacular results we are achieving from our exploration programs.”

Extensive mineralisation

Mitre has already identified widespread high-grade mineralisation outside the resource, including the promising Cristal veins.

It is now looking to add to the early exploration success with drilling underway aimed at bringing these areas into the resource.

“We expect that the coming quarters will see ongoing resource growth and demonstrate the full potential of the district,” Mr Laneyrie said.

Cerro Bayo exploration

Mitre has hit the ground running with its plans to rapidly expand the known riches at Cerro Bayo.

During the March quarter, the company drilled the first three of an eight-hole program focused on resource growth at the Pegaso 7 target area.

Pegaso 7 is one of a number of high-priority brownfields targets within a 3 kilometre radius of the mine’s processing plant, with the others including Cristal and extensions of the known high-grade resources at Taitao, Coyita and Delia.

New field work

The exploration team is also undertaking field work proximal to historic mining areas and during the quarter discovered extensions to the high-grade Cristal vein system located  approximately 1.1km from the plant.

Mitre believes these vein systems may represent a feeder system to the main Cristal zone as well as a bulk mineralised zone.

Drilling will commence at the Cristal veins to test the newly discovered vein swarm and in-fill a number of high-grade historic drill intercepts not in the current resource following completion of the Pegaso 7 drilling program.

The exploration team is also integrating over 30 years of geological data and actively working on future drilling targets that have not seen modern exploration methods.

Resource update

A highlight of the March quarter was the release of a Cerro Bayo resource update that included extensive historic drilling, recent drill hole re-logging/re-sampling information, face assay data, detailed drive mapping, historic NI43-101 compliant wireframes and relevant geological records.

The update includes the addition of the high-grade Delia South, Trinidad and Coyita underground resources, which total 1.2 million tonnes at 655 grams per tonne silver equivalent (7.9 g/t gold equivalent) for 25.4 million ounces AgEq.

This update established a revised total inferred and indicated resource within the Laguna Verde area of approximately 5Mt at 311g/t for 50Moz AgEq.

Mitre is confident it can achieve further progressive resource growth proximal to the Laguna Verde processing facility as it continues to review historic data and undertake additional drilling.

The focus over the coming quarters will include reviews and drilling at the Condor, Temer, Dagny, Yasna, Dalila, Branca, Fabiola and Juncos underground mines.