Balkans-focused mineral explorer Adriatic Metals has delivered another swag of high-grade base metal intercepts from an ongoing extensional drilling campaign at the company’s Vares silver operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The current campaign is designed to confirm whether high-grade mineralisation at the project’s existing resource, Rupice, continues along strike to the north-west in an area recently predictably coined Rupice Northwest.
Adriatic’s drill efforts confirmed an extension of mineralisation up to 250m north-west of the Rupice resource that already boasts a 10-year mine life as per the company’s definitive feasibility study in 2021.
The latest drilling 75m north-west of Rupice returned a 19.9m hit going 846 grams per tonne silver equivalent and 27.2 per cent zinc equivalent from 207m including a 6.5m interval running 1861 g/t silver equivalent and 59.8 per cent zinc equivalent.
A broad 32.5m hit was uncovered 155m north-west of Rupice grading 657 g/t silver equivalent and 21.1 per cent zinc equivalent from 285.5m. The broad intercept also contained a higher-grade 2m interval running 1331 g/t silver equivalent and 42.8 per cent zinc equivalent.
At the furthest extent of 250m from the existing resource, three mineralised intercepts were uncovered from one hole including 18.4m at 194 g/t silver equivalent and 6.2 per cent zinc equivalent from 267m and 41m at 520 g/t silver equivalent and 16.7 per cent zinc equivalent.
Adriatic Metals Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Cronin said: “The highly successful drilling campaign at Rupice Northwest further underpins Adriatic’s strategy to increase the life of mine of Rupice to at least twenty years.”
Notably, Adriatic’s haul of assays confirms the widths and grades encountered at Rupice Northwest are equivalent to those within the existing resource. The latest reported intercepts come from nine holes out of 19 completed in the year to date. Assays from another six drill holes are pending. The high-grade hits build on previous results of similar grade from the emerging zone of mineralisation in the north-west reported in June.
Further infill drilling is planned for the remainder of 2022 with the explorer envisaging a gap of less than 90m will separate its resource from its unfolding mineralisation at Rupice Northwest.
Adriatic kicked off construction of its Rupice mine infrastructure in November last year after it secured a funding facility a month earlier. With the construction currently at the midway mark, the company plans to continue its infill and extensional drilling as it looks to feed the hits into an updated mineral resource in the first quarter of next year.
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