Alien Metals Ltd (LSE:UFO) said its inaugural drilling programme on the Elizabeth Hill silver project, situated in the resource-rich Pilbara region of Australia, is due to start in coming days.
Alien has mobilised a diamond drill rig and plans to drill seven holes to test for extensions to the known mineralisation both along strike and at depth and to complete initial verification work on historical drilling carried out over 20 years ago.
Historical drilling intersected exceptionally high-grade silver zones with numerous intersections over 10,000 grammes a tonne (g/t).
Elizabeth Hill was mined between 1998 and 2000 producing 1.17 million ounces of silver from just 16,800 tonnes of ore, equating to a grade of around 2,195g/t silver. Mining ceased in 2000 due to the silver price falling below US$5 an ounce, about a fifth of the current spot price.
“We are very excited to be commencing our inaugural drilling programme, which we feel will add significant understanding to the known silver mineralisation, as well as targeting what we believe to be an even larger mineralised system that the silver orebody sits within,” said chief executive Bill Brodie Good.
“The West Pilbara is now recognised as a world class mineral province with the potential to discover a major new significant nickel, copper and PGE hosting system in and around Elizabeth Hill, similar to the recently discovered VC7 and Andover nickel-cobalt discoveries along with the known, but still to be fully defined, Carlow Castle, Radio Hill and Mt Sholl precious and base metals discoveries.
"The company believes that a number of targets were never fully followed up on, hence this initial 7-hole programme will focus on the historic orebody and its immediate surroundings. The focus of the programme is the production of the highest quality core from the main zones within the orebody to enable us to better understand the orebody and develop next stage work."