Vizsla Silver Makes New Discovery at Panuco

Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. I’m Trevor Hall. And I’m Paul Harris.

Today is Wednesday, January 19th. 

The precious metals sector put in an admirable performance on Tuesday across the board despite the bloodbath that occurred in the general stock market plus the big spike up in the dollar index and Treasury bond rates.Gold zig-zag'd throughout the trading day but eventually succumbed to the pressure of hedge fund selling, closing down $4 per ounce from Monday. 

Silver, on the other hand, mysteriously shot up as much as 80 cents when the Comex opened for business before pulling back and settling up 57 cents, or 2.5%, on the day. The Mining Stock Journal could not find a catalyst for the surprise move because usually silver gets hit hard when the stock market is tanking. That said, the newsletter noted that there's been a prolonged decline in the SLV silver ETF Trusts silver holdings, which could be indicative of the structural supply/demand deficit in the physical silver market. 

Mining stocks yo-yo'd up and down on Tuesday, but ultimately closed down, with the GDX down 1.2%. The Mining Stock Journal points out that, despite the redness of the broad mining stock market indices, several individual stocks - mostly silver companies - were up on the day.

We’ll get to the news out of the miners and explorers in a moment but first a mention of today’s sponsor…

This episode of Mining Stock Daily is brought to you by… Western Copper and Gold. 

Western Copper and Gold is focused on developing the world-class Casino project in Canada's Yukon Territory. The Casino project consists of an impressive 11 billion pounds of copper and 21 million ounces of gold in an overall resource. Western Copper and Gold trades on the TSX and the NYSE American with WRN. Be sure to follow the company via their website, www.westerncopperandgold.com.

And here’s what you need to know this morning….

Vizsla Silver announced a high-grade, precious metal rich discovery in what it calls the Copala vein within the hanging wall of the Tajitos target at its Panuco silver-gold project in Sinaloa, Mexico. It drilled an intersect of 2.3m grading 2,147 grams per tonne silver and 18.04g/t gold, or 3,701g/t silver equivalent within a broader interval of 81.91m grading 226g/t AgEq in hole 90. To date, eight holes have encountered the Copala vein, with all reported intercepts occurring above 200m vertical depth. These results will be included in a maiden resource estimate due during the March quarter. The company also reported that its common shares have been approved to list on the NYSE American under the ticker symbol VZLA. That will commence this Friday. In the meantime, Vizsla Silver trades on the TSXV under VZLA and on the OTCQB under VIZSF. News release

Continuing the discovery news, Skeena Resources announced the discovery of a zone of near surface, footwall style mineralisation called the 23 Zone outside the limits of the pit-constrained mineral resources at its Eskay Creek gold-silver project in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia, Canada. Highlights included 90m grading 0.99 grams per tonne gold and 6.5g/t silver, or 1.08g/t gold equivalent in hole 945. The new zone begins 15m below surface and is 200m east of the high-grade 21A Zone. Skeena said selective drill hole sampling by a previous operator meant the discovery of this area was missed. The regional exploration drilling program was designed to test near surface targets across the property to delineate additional near surface resources to supplement the existing mine plan. To date, 72 drill holes for 12,890m have been completed representing ~37% of the budgeted 35,000m drill program. Skeena Resources trades on the TSX and NYSE under SKE. News release

And we continue to see more production numbers coming through this week. Today, we received the following: B2Gold said it set a record annual total gold production of over 1,047,000 ounces marking the thirteenth consecutive year of record annual total gold production. However, this includes production from its share ownership in Calibre Mining, despite the fact that it does not receive any gold from Calibre. Stripping out attributed production from Calibre, B2Gold produced 987,595oz in 2021, slightly less than the 995,258oz it produced in 2020. News release

Barrick Gold announced preliminary full year 2021 production of 4.44 million ounces gold, at the bottom end of its guidance and 415 million pounds copper, also within guidance. The company said this was the third consecutive year it has met guidance. The company said preliminary production in the December quarter was 1.2Moz gold and 126Mlb copper at average prices of US$1,795 per ounce and $4.40 per pound. Barrick reported strong performance from Carlin and Cortez in Nevada, USA following the repair of the Goldstrike roaster, and increased throughput at Lumwana in Zambia. News release

Pan American Silver reported consolidated silver production for the year of 19.2 million ounces and gold production of 579.3 thousand ounces. Both were within the revised guidance set earlier in the fall. News Release

And Aya Gold & Silver also reported their 2021 production numbers of 1.6 million ounces of silver from the Zgounder Silver Mine in Morocco. The head grade for the year averaged 269 g/t silver, which was above annual guidance. For this year, the company placed the annual production to 1.65 million to 1.8 million ounces, which would be an 8% increase if achieved. News Release

Finally, Golden Minerals announced assay results from the first drilling ever at its Sarita Este gold-silver-copper prospect in Salta, Argentina. The company drilled 10 diamond holes for 2,518m on several untested epithermal gold-silver and porphyry copper targets. Highlights included 9.9m grading 1.91 grams per tonne gold and 5g/t silver on the epithermal gold target, and 240m grading 0.13% copper on the porphyry copper target. Sarita Este is adjacent to First Quantum Mineral’s Taca Taca porphyry copper deposit. Golden Minerals trades on the TSX and NYSE American under AUMN. News release

That concludes today’s morning briefing.

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