The expectations for the Boumadine polymetallic project in Morocco were high but Aya Gold & Silver (AYA.TO) knocked the ball out of the park with its maiden resource calculation on the project. The resource was based on the data from in excess of 96,000 meters of drilling in 336 diamond holes.
As the table below shows, the company has split the resource in an open pit resource which contains 20.3 million ounces of silver-equivalent in the indicated resource category and an additional 129.5 million ounces of silver-equivalent in the inferred resources. The so-called out of pit resource hosts an additional 13.5 million ounces of silver-equivalent in the indicated resource category and almost 189 million ounces of silver-equivalent in the inferred resource category.
This results in a total resource calculation containing 33.8 million ounces of silver-equivalent in the indicated category (including 7.4 million ounces of pure silver) while Boumadine hosts an additional 318 million ounces of silver-equivalent in the inferred category including almost 65 million ounces of silver. On a consolidated basis, the project thus hosts approximately 72 million ounces of silver, 2.1 million ounces of gold, close to 50 million pounds of copper, about half a billion pounds of zinc and about 1.4 billion pounds of zinc. Based on the meta values, it appears to be predominantly a gold project although Boumadine obviously contains copious amounts of silver as well.
Aya will embark on a 120,000 meter drill program this year and will use seven drill rigs to complete the program. About half of the 60,000 meters will focus on infill drilling and following the trend while the other half of the drill program will focus on testing new targets.
Disclosure: The author has no position in Aya Gold & Silver. Please read the disclaimer.
