Yamana adds to Martha

Mining operations at Yamana Resources‘ (YRI-T) high-grade Martha underground silver mine on the Bacon property in the southern Patagonia region of Santa Cruz, Argentina, have been temporarily suspended pending analysis of recent drilling and the development of a new mining plan to include recently discovered resources.

Sorting and bagging of existing broken ore at surface will continue through about mid-November.

During September, Yamana completed a 16-hole drilling program, which confirmed existing resources in pocket 1 and added new resources in pocket 3. In October, underground development concentrated on two new zones.

At pocket 1 West, drilling confirmed a resource of 440 tonnes averaging 804 equivalent silver oz. Further to the west, deeper and outside of the resource area, drilling returned 0.5 metre grading 744 oz. silver and 0.5 metre running 388 oz. silver per tonne. Gold assay results are pending.

Seven holes have extended pocket 3 East by 20 metres to the east and to a depth of 30 metres.

Continued drift development 15 metres to the west and 15 metres to the east of pockets 1 and 3, respectively have prepared new areas for mining.

Martha’s current resource is estimated at 4,993 tonnes averaging 428 oz. of equivalent silver per tonne, or about 2.1 million contained equivalent silver oz. About 600,000 of the oz. are contained in pillars and remnants and may not be immediately mineable without impeding access to new resources.

Drilling to extend eastward the new resources east of pocket 3 is underway.

Outside the four known pockets, drilling has indicated that resources at Bacon are 4.7 million equivalent oz. averaging 42.4 oz. per tonne.

An in-house study suggests that the Martha vein system remains incompletely tested and has exploration potential for 40 million equivalent oz.

Yamana is also continuing talks with its lender with respect to an extension of the maturity date (Dec. 31) on the project’s financing facility. The company is also considering bringing on a partner.