Great Panther Mining Limited (TSE:GPR) (NYSEAMERICAN:GPL) (FRA:G3U) has outlined its exploration plans for this year, which will see a record 90,000 metres (m) sunk and around US$13 million spent.
"Our key objectives will be to continue to extend the Tucano open pit mine life, further prove up the underground, with a view to extending the high-grade zones, and make meaningful inroads into key targets in the expansive Tucano regional land package," said Rob Henderson, the CEO of the precious metals miner, which has assets in Mexico, Brazil and Peru.
READ: Great Panther Mining extends mine life at Tucano gold project with reserve and resource update
"Building on our 2020 exploration success in Mexico will also be a key focus," he added.
Its key Tucano gold mine in Brazil hosts a 7km-long trend of gold deposits, which is surrounded by a 2,000 square kilometre (sq km) land package controlled by the company, and the latter will be the focus this year.
Five drill rigs are planned to complete 60,000m of drilling and more than 500km of regional soil sampling to identify high priority targets, said Great Panther, noting that little exploration or resource drilling had been carried out outside the Tucano mine trend.
At the Tucano open pit mine, 24,000m of reverse circulation (RC) drilling is planned, including the TAP C, Urso and Torres targets, as well as testing of several geochemical anomalies.
At the Urucun underground pit at Tucano, 8,000m of diamond drilling program is planned to upgrade one of the known high-grade zones at Urucum North, while testing another zone at Urucum Central.
For the regional exploration, 28,000m has been planned for fast-track evaluation of key targets such as Mutum, Saraminda and Lona Amarela, which are all within 15km of the existing operating mine.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, at the group's San Ignacio mine, 5,000m of fill-in surface drilling is planned along the Purisima veins, and at the Guanajuato mien complex, sampling and geological mapping in accessible parts of the historical mining areas is nearly complete, which will be followed by a planned 10,000m of underground drilling on the most prospective areas.
At the Topia mine in Mexico, 5,000m of exploration surface drilling is planned, to define new resources in six areas along the strike and down-dip extents.
Work, budgeted at US$2 million, at Great Panther's other projects may include the Plomo gold project in Sonora state, Mexico and the El Horcón which is near to GMC, or Coricancha asset in Peru.
Also in today's statement, Great Panther said it had now filed the technical report, which included the updated reserve and resource estimates for the producing Tucano gold mine, reported in December.
Proven and probable reserves were put at 629,000 ounces of gold, of which 299,000 are in the more readily exploited open pit. The higher confidence measured and indicated (M&I) resources now stand at 953,000 ounces of the yellow metal, which includes the reserves.
At the Tucano open pit, measured and indicated resources were pegged at 561,000 gold ounces, which is an increase of 28% since September 2019. Inferred resources at Tucano now total 534,000 ounces.
Shares in New York added nearly 4% to US$0.84 each.
---Updates for share price---
Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com