Aftermath Silver Ltd (TSX-V:AAG, OTCQX:AAGFF) earlier this week provided an update on its Berenguela silver-copper-manganese project in southern Peru.
CEO Ralph Rushton said the company has completed its second phase of drilling and released new results.
Proactive: Welcome back inside our Proactive newsroom. Joining me now is Ralph Rushton, CEO of Aftermath Silver. Ralph, good to see you again. How are you?
Ralph Rushton: I'm good, thank you. I'm enjoying this lovely crisp morning.
It's wintertime, but the good news is that you can get a lot of work done. Today, we're talking about phase two drill results from your project in Peru. Can you remind everyone about the project and its significance?
Yes, the project is the Berenguela silver-copper-manganese project in southern Peru. We are moving beyond exploration into the development and engineering stages. Our goal is to demonstrate that we can produce silver, copper, and a viable manganese product for the battery industry.
And this was a very detailed drill program, correct?
Yes. We've just completed our second drill program, and we've released the second set of results for 2024-2025. This program had two main objectives. The first was geological investigation in the fault zone, helping geologists refine their model. We weren’t expecting significant assay results from that area, but understanding the geology is critical. The second objective was infill drilling on the eastern side of the deposit, improving the statistical confidence in our resource estimate.
So, these infill holes were the focus of your latest news release. Did they meet your expectations?
Yes. We don’t expect a major change in grade or resource size, but these results should allow us to convert some of the inferred resources to a higher confidence category. That means more tonnes in the measured and indicated category, which is what engineers prefer for mine planning.
What’s the next step from here?
We have at least one more drill results release coming. Those results will feed into an updated resource model. Engineers will then use that model to refine the mine plan as part of our Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA), which we expect to complete by Q3 of this year.
So far, you’ve received results from 23 drill holes, and you have 60 in total. That’s a significant dataset.
Yes, and when you add that to the 380 holes already drilled at Berenguela, we now have around 450 drill holes in total. That provides enough geological data and metallurgical material for our studies. We’re getting very close to having all the information needed to complete the engineering work.
Quores have been lightly edited for clarity and style