Apr 26 2019
New Pacific Metal Corp. takes pleasure in announcing the start of the 2019 drill programs at the Silver Sand Project in the Department of Potosi, Bolivia. The total calculated meterage for 2019 drilling campaign is around 55,000 m of diamond coring drilling.
The Silver Sand Project comprises of three 100% owned concessions of about 7 km2 and an area of about 57 km2 (including 201 mining grids and 29 special temporary authorizations) covered by the Mining Production Contract (MPC).
As previously reported in the company’s news release dated January 11th, 2019, New Pacific has signed the MPC with COMIBOL, subject to ratification by the Plurinational Legislative Assembly of Bolivia.
Grab samples of many surface dump sites and chip samples from many artisanal mining tunnels show that the silver mineralized fracture zones can expand up to 6 km long in the North-North-West direction and up to 2 km wide in the North-East-East direction.
The targets for the 2019 drilling program are as follows: (1) drill prospects with good silver grades from historical artisanal mining dumps to extend the mineralization zones at the Silver Sand, (2) infill drilling to a point where an initial NI 43-101 compliant Mineral Resource estimate can be obtained for the Silver Sand area by the end of 2019, (3) drilling for samples for further metallurgical test work, and (4) drill prospects surrounding Silver Sand indicating similar silver mineralization as shown by historical artisanal mining. Presently, the company has three drill rigs on the site. The company has also obtained the environmental permits from the relevant Bolivian government authorities to carry out mineral exploration activities in the MPC areas surrounding the Silver Sand area.
The company has bought the land situated nearly 16 km south of the Silver Sand Project that is appropriate to build an exploration camp, which includes accommodation, offices, and drill core processing and storage facilities. This location is about 10 km east of the Potosi airport at an elevation of 3,620 m above sea level.
Quality Assurance and Quality Control
The size of the core from the 2019 drilling program will be HQ. The core samples from drill holes will be split using a diamond saw at the camp site. To reduce costs and speed up the sample preparation process, the company will launch its own sample preparation facilities at the camp site, including pulverizing and crushing in 2019. Pulp samples will be transported to globally accredited industrial laboratories for geochemical analysis.
A thorough quality control protocol and quality assurance will be used in 2019, as it was in 2018 drilling campaign, to check the quality of analysis and sample preparation. Standards of certified reference materials, duplicates, and blanks will be added to the normal core sample sequences before shipment to the laboratory at a ratio of 20:1, meaning every 20 samples contain at least one blank sample, one standard sample, and one duplicate sample.
The scientific and technical information in this news release was reviewed and approved by Alex Zhang, P. Geo., VP Exploration of the Company and Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101.