Alien Metals has kicked off its inaugural Elizabeth Hill drilling program with a bang after making a significant discovery at the historic Western Australia silver mine.
The United Kingdom-based company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, completed a drill program of 1991 metres across 22 holes at Elizabeth Hill.
From four diamond drill holes, Alien returned a hit of 9.7 metres of mineralisation measuring 8326 grams of silver per tonne (g/t) from 15 metres of depth.
This was complemented by an intercept of 24.8 metres of mineralisation measuring 829 g/t of silver, including a 11.7-metre stretch consisting of 1735 g/t of silver.
This set of assays also returned base metals mineralisation, of which copper, nickel, lead, zinc and cobalt was present.
To put the discovery into perspective, Western Australia’s largest silver asset, 29Metals’ Golden Grove copper-gold-zinc-silver mine, milled silver at about 43 g/t in 2021.
In Queensland, South32’s Cannington mine milled silver at grades around 177 g/t for the second half of 2021, while in 2020 Glencore’s Mount Isa zinc-lead-silver mine had a measured and indicated resource of 69 g/t of silver.
Alien chief executive officer and technical director Bill Brodie Good said the discovery highlights Elizabeth Hill’s untapped nature.
“These fantastic initial results support the company’s view that the near surface oxide expression of the deposit was never fully tested, nor its potential fully explored for both the silver and the base metals present,” he said.
“Some of these grades have to be some of the highest for a silver project in Australia.”
Alien is still awaiting assays from an RC (reverse circulation) drilling program at Elizabeth Hill, which are expected in the remaining weeks.
According to Market Index, the silver price has ridden the COVID wave since the beginning of 2020, reaching nearly $US30 ($43) per ounce in August 2020.
Having traded below $US25 per ounce for the better part of the last six months, silver sat at $US22.49 per ounce at time of writing.