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Rio Silver
Investor Insight
Rio Silver’s value proposition leverages a wholly owned 4,300 hectares of mineral concessions in a historic Peruvian mining district, a management team holding a 29 percent stake and over two decades of local experience, extensive exploration data and promising historical drill results.
Overview
Rio Silver (TSXV:RYO) is a precious metals mining and exploration company with a focus on the acquisition, exploration and development of precious metals deposits in South America. The company is currently focused on advancing its 100 percent-owned Niñobamba silver-gold project in Peru. The company has decades of experience navigating the mining regulatory landscape of Peru and considers itself to be well-positioned for the coming mining cycle.
Rio Silver’s flagship Niñobamba property is located in the Department of Ayacucho about 330 kilometers southeast of Lima. The 4,300-hectare property is wholly owned by the company and the project is drill ready. The Niñobamba project partially comprises a 2,200 hectare property which was previously owned by Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM) and Southern Peru Mining. The balance was held by AngloGold Ashanti and Bear Creek Mining but has since been strategically acquired and consolidated into Rio Silver’s property.
The Ninobamba project engulfs a collapsed caldera, an ancient volcano, where the Niñobamba North and South zones were mineralized in a hot spring environment within the wall rock of the caldera surrounded by areas that contain high-sulfidation mineralization with near surface silver and gold deposits modeled for Rio Silver using leapfrog 3D software. The neighbouring Jorimina deposit, 6.5 kilometers to the west, where Newmont spent more than US$7 million, concluded an internal, positive, preliminary economic assessment, detailing a predominantly gold-rich, low to mid-sulfidation deposit found in the floor structure of this collapsed caldera.
The company’s management and advisory team is made up of experienced industry veterans, some with as many as 25 years of experience working in Peru. The team has an in-depth understanding of the regulatory processes associated with mining exploration in the country.
To date, Rio Silver and other historical operators have completed US$10 million in exploration expenditure on the Niñobamba property. The company has low overhead expenditure and strong alliances in Peru that are helping it achieve new initiatives for enhanced sustainability.
The company now holds a 3 percent net smelter return (NSR) royalty with guaranteed minimum payments from a recent property sale and these initiatives enable more exploration by helping Rio Silver with sustaining costs.
Company Highlights
- Rio Silver owns six mineral concessions covering 4,300 hectares of wholly-owned land in a historic Peruvian mining district.
- The property was historically surrounded by big-name miners (Newmont, Southern Peru Copper) and is now wholly owned by Rio Silver.
- Experienced management team with more than two decades of mining experience in Peru.
- Extensive trenching completed at the Niñobamba zone.
- The management team holds a 29 percent stake in the company.
- US$10 million in exploration expenditure completed to date by Rio and historical operators.
- All the historical data has been collected from previous owners.
- Historical drilling on the Niñobamba property intersected 130 meters of 2.55 oz/t silver and 72.3 meters of 1.19 g/t gold.
- New gold zone identified include 56 meters at 98.9 g/t silver and 21.77 meters at 1.32 g/t gold, 102.46 g/t silver.
Key Project
Niñobamba Silver Project, Peru
Located 330 kilometers southeast of Lima in the Department of Ayacucho, the Niñobamba property is 100 percent wholly owned by Rio Silver. The property includes six mineral concessions covering 4,300 hectares. The district has historically been mined by major international gold miners including Newmont Goldcorp and Southern Peru Mining.
The property was initially explored by AngloGold (JSE:ANG) in 2001. Anglo drilled five widely-spaced core holes totaling 861 meters focusing in an area of intense hydrothermal surface alteration. AngloGold’s drilling highlights included assay results of 87.0 grams per tonne (g/t) silver over a drilled interval of 130 meters starting from a depth of 9 meters reported from drill hole DDH-2 and 54.0 g/t silver over a drilled interval of 96 meters starting from 23 meters reported from the AN-04 drill hole.
Adjacent zones acquired from major miners
In 2016, Rio Silver consolidated its property by acquiring the surrounding 2,200 hectares of adjoining land from Newmont Mining and Southern Peru Copper. These included the 2,000 hectare Jorimina zone, which is located about 6.5 kilometers west of the Niñobamba and is believed to be part of the same high-sulfidation silver-gold system identified in the main Niñobamba zones. Along with the property came an extensive database of information including results and reports from an exploration program by the mining majors which encompassed 553 hectares. Newmont’s exploration included mapping, 2,147 rock samples and induced polarization geophysics. This historic exploration indicated a gold anomalous area of more than 700 meters by 1,000 meters as well as four strong chargeability anomalies coinciding with gold-silver in rock anomalies.
Newmont’s historic data includes samples of 17.4 meters of 3.06 g/t gold and 200 meters of 0.26 g/t gold. Historic exploration in the Jorimina zone conducted by Newmont in 2009 and 2010 shows highlights of 72.3 meters of 1.19 g/t gold starting at 53-meter depth.
In 2024, Rio Silver completed a surface access agreement with the local community for one year at the Jorimina project after an environmental impact study and community workshops were also completed to represent the final steps of the drill permitting application process.
Exploration and trenching results
To date, extensive trenching has been completed by Rio Silver on the Niñobamba property. In 2012, the company began conducting surface trenching in areas proximate to historical drilling locations. Exploration has focused primarily on the north and south zones of silver mineralization approximately 400 meters apart with variable thicknesses. Surface sampling near trenches in the north zone returned highlights of 1.32 g/t gold and 102.46 g/t silver. Sampling near trenches in the south zone returned highlights of 42.62 meters of 130.98 g/t silver. Additional highlights can be found on Rio Silver’s website.Management Team
Chris Verrico - President, CEO, and Director
Chris Verrico has extensive experience with rural-remote infrastructure construction and contract mining throughout BC, the Yukon, Alaska and Nunavut. He has been a director for a dozen startup junior mining companies, most of which have become public companies. Verrico has managed numerous exploration projects in North America, Mexico and throughout western South America. He is currently the director of Juggernaught Exploration.
Christopher Hopton - CFO
Christopher Hopton has over 25 years of experience in senior accounting and financial roles. He is currently the CFO of Sirona Biochem.
Steve Brunelle - Chairman
Steve Brunelle is the former officer and director of Corner Bay Silver, which was acquired by Pan American Silver. He has 35 years of experience in mineral exploration throughout the Americas and is currently an Officer and Director for several TSXV companies.
Jeffrey J Reeder - Advisor
Jeffrey J Reeder is a professional geologist with more than two decades of experience working in Peru. Reeder possesses an in-depth understanding of the rules, practices, and processes involved in conducting mining and exploration in the country and is currently the president of Peruvian Metals that owns a custom toll milling facility in northern Peru.
Jim McCrea – Adviser
Jim McCrea has more than 30 years’ experience in exploration, mining geology and mineral resource estimation. He worked for junior mining/exploration companies and engineering companies SRK and Snowden. His geological expertise ranges from technical review and due diligence to resource estimation and feasibility studies. McCrea has experience in a range of commodities, but primarily gold, silver and copper, with particular focus on North and South America. He has performed ore body modeling and resource estimation for the successfully targeted takeover company Cumberland Resources by Agnico-Eagle Mines. More recently, McCrea completed many mineral resource estimations underpinning acquisitions such as Minera San Cristóbal S.A. of Bolivia, Arena Minerals and Montan Mining, to mention a few.
Edward J Badidaa, - Director
Edward J Badidaa is a professional accountant with over 40 years of financial management and corporate governance experience. He currently serves as a director for Patagonia Gold.
Richard Mazur - Director
Richard Mazur is the co-founder and past managing director of RLG International operating in over 30 countries worldwide with more than 300 employees.
Jeffrey J. Reeder, P. GEO - Advisor
Jeffrey J. Reeder, P. Geo., has a B.Sc. (Hon.) in Geology from the University of Alberta and since 1992 has been registered as a professional geologist with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia. With 25 years of experience in Peru and fluent in Spanish, Mr. Reeder is responsible for identifying and acquiring both Aguila Copper-Moly being developed by Mexican mining company Industrias Peñoles and Pinaya Copper-Gold project currently being explored by Kaizen Discovery. He is currently the President / CEO for Peruvian Metals who operates a successful and expanding toll milling plant in northern Peru while developing mines in proximity capable of increasing supply to this mineral processing facility.
41m at 2.01g/t Au from Surface at Murchison South Gold Project
HIGHLIGHTS
- RC drilling from the first two (2) holes at the Murchison South gold project has intersected high grade gold, providing initial validation of historical drilling results
- Significant assay results include (down hole widths):
- 25PFRC001 (Hole 1)
41m @ 2.01 g/t from surface; including 15m @ 2.01 g/t from 2m, and
5m @ 10.01 g/t from 36m
- 25PFRC002 (Hole 2)
22m @ 0.70 g/t from 33m; including 10m @ 1.05 g/t from 33m, and
1m @1.61 g/t from 45m
- 25PFRC001 (Hole 1)
- A total of fourteen holes were drilled for 1463m at an average depth of 104m, at the Blue Heaven deposit
- Results from the first two drill holes align with the interim mineralisation analysis completed by Mining Plus, with the holes having intercepted the main rock types and showing a well- defined weathering profile
- Assays from the remaining 12 holes are due next week
Commenting on the results CEO Jeremy Bower said:
“These fantastic initial results give us a great start towards validation of the historic drilling and resource model at our Blue Heaven deposit. We have hit some high-grade shallow gold intervals, which align with the model, which is very encouraging, and we now eagerly await assays from the remaining 12 holes so we can get a complete understanding of our project.”
Figure 1: Murchison South Gold Project showing the Blue Heaven deposit with current and historic drilling.
The drill program comprised 14 RC holes for a total of 1463m at an average depth of 104m and collection of 1588 samples for assay. This announcement relates to the first two (2) drill holes only (Refer to JORC Table 1 Appendix A for full results and collar table from holes 25PFRC001 & 25PFRC002).
Figure 2: Cross Section.
The weathering zone is not intercepted in this cross-section but appears further south from Section 3 (Figure 1). Cross-Section 1 (Figure 2) displays multiple high-grade zones that broadly align with the existing model. Low-grade zones (yellow) envelop the high-grade mineralisation and correlate well with the new drilling.
Once all the drilling results have been received, Mining Plus will have sufficient data to interrogate the results before integrating them into their model. This will guide the next steps in optimizing pit designs at the Blue Heaven deposit and additionally will help determine the number and locations of planned diamond drill holes, which will be the source of sample material for the required metallurgical testing and geotechnical analysis.
Key Next Steps
- Receipt of remaining assay results
- Mining plus continue their independent mining review
- Metallurgical test work
- Negotiations with mining contractors and processors
Click here for the full ASX Release
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Rio Silver Investor Kit
- Corporate info
- Insights
- Growth strategies
- Upcoming projects