Patriot Resources has cracked open the map on its 100 per cent-owned Tassa silver and gold project in southern Peru to come up with a massive, district-scale exploration target that puts some serious silver on the table.
The company says its latest independent JORC 2012 exploration target now stands at an eye-watering range of between 559 million ounces to 774 million ounces of silver equivalent.
Patriot sees that sort of endowment, if proven, as potentially punting Tassa into a heady realm among the world’s biggest undeveloped silver systems.
The numbers are based on a conceptual exploration target ranging from 359 million to 422 million tonnes within a grade range of between 48 grams per tonne (g/t) to 57g/t silver equivalent.
Patriot also estimates the target includes between 479 million ounces and 663 million ounces of silver at a grade ranging between 42g/t and 49g/t silver, giving investors plenty of leverage to the silver price.
The company’s upgraded target scale is derived from what it describes as the first integrated interpretation of more than 20 years of work. It has pulled together 1832 surface samples and geophysical surveys, including an estimated 36km of induced polarisation (IP) and 70km of ground magnetics.
That huge database was further enhanced by almost 8500 m of historical diamond drilling along a 2.9-kilometre-long corridor, where the potential for further discoveries remains open.
Notably, the new target extends well beyond the company’s February maiden inferred resource of 31.4 million ounces of silver equivalent at 52.68g/t, which was defined from 26 diamond holes for 8475m across the North, Central and South zones of the project.
Patriot Resources managing director and chief executive officer Dominic Duggan said: “What is particularly compelling is not just the size, but the quality of the opportunity — a silver-dominant system at surface, with strong continuity, and clear potential to support large-scale development. The Exploration Target is underpinned by extensive historical drilling, geophysics and geochemistry, all validated through independent modelling.”
Management reckons the real prize lies in the under-drilled “bridge zones” between the known silver-rich areas, where surface geochemistry lines up with IP geophysical anomalies that extend from or near the surface and plunge to giddy depths of at least 550m.
The dataset is not short on heavy metal flavour either, with previous operators reporting standout surface silver values. These included four reported silver grades at surface, ranging from 461g/t to 1090g/t silver, and a peak rock chip assay of 8160g/t silver. Drilling has also delivered big, high-grade intervals, highlighted by 60m at 224.2g/t silver from 24m.
Patriot has already been busy de-risking the story in other ways. In early March, it flagged historical cyanidation testwork from six surface samples, which averaged 85.05 per cent silver recovery.
That revelation prompted an independent metallurgical review to validate and tighten recovery assumptions ahead of future resource updates.
Patriot’s next move is to progress local community engagement and permitting, with a focused 4000m drilling program aimed at converting some of that exploration target material into JORC-compliant resources.
With a materially bigger exploration footprint defined and a clear path to infill the gaps between known mineralised zones and geophysical anomalies, Patriot looks like it has given the market a fresh reason to keep an eye on its Tassa project as the next round of fieldwork comes into view.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Doug Bright
