Adriatic Metals has unveiled more high-grade silver and zinc intercepts at its Rupice Northwest extension in Bosnia and Herzegovina that continues to expand the larger multi-commodity deposit’s mineralisation. One of the diamond holes returned a broad 30.9m section going 851 grams per tonne silver equivalent about 90 metres northwest of the company’s existing 12 million tonne resource going 149 g/t silver, 1.4 g/t gold and 4.1 per cent zinc.
The 30.9m strike from 239.5m contains 233 g/t silver, 9.0 per cent zinc, 6.1 per cent lead, 1.3 g/t gold, 0.5 per cent copper and 67 per cent barium sulphate.
Notably, the over 30m section housed an even higher-grade, 23.5m silver component clocking in at 993 g/t from 245m.
Another hole returned a 24.5m strike at 794 g/t silver equivalent from 250.5m. The hit contained 343 g/t silver, 5.5 per cent zinc, 3.7 per cent lead, 1.4 g/t gold, 0.2 per cent copper and 75 per cent barium sulphate.
Adriatic says the stratigraphic sequence and style of mineralisation in the newly intercepted mineralised zone, coined ‘Rupice Northwest’, bears a striking resemblance to the Rupice deposit itself.
The company outlined the extension towards the end of last year.
The rolling step-out exploratory play at Rupice Northwest is aimed at determining if the high-grade mineralisation at the current resource continues along strike to the north-west. Management says the work continues to deliver the goods with its latest results adding a suite of thick, high-grade accumulations of sulphide mineralisation up-dip from previous hits.
Adriatic is still waiting on results from a number of additional holes that struck massive sulphide mineralisation within the exploration area to trickle in.
The UK-based company is currently running a resource definition and in-fill drilling campaign at Rupice and once complete will feed the results into an updated mineral resource estimate.
Once its resource definition and in-fill drilling programs are wrapped up, management will focus its attention on the Rupice Northwest extension along with a series of other exploration targets dotted around the Rupice orebody.
Adriatic plans to shift around 22,000m worth of exploration and in-fill dirt this year, that it argues could extend the life of its rapidly advancing namesake underground mine by a decade.
The company hopes to have the operation up and running by next year and recently completed a host of civil earth works as it prepares to bring the mine along with a processing plant online.
The resource defined at Rupice forms part of a broader resource base at Adriatic’s Vares project, where the company only a few months ago released a cracking set of numbers from a definitive feasibility study, or “DFS” evaluating the potential of bringing Vares into production.
The analysis forecasted an average EBITDA of US$281.1 million per annum in the first five years of concentrate production, a remarkable net present value of US$1.06 billion after tax and a stonking internal rate of return of 134 per cent after tax.
Remarkably, the DFS projected a US$168m fee to bring the project to life, with a pay-back period of under a year.
As Adriatic moves closer to starting up an underground mine at its Vares project in Bosnia and Herzegovina the continued extension of the operation’s multi-commodity Rupice deposit could serve as a significant shot in the arm. Now onto more drilling.
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By Matt Birney
