Trevali proving potential at past-producing Santander

Vancouver — The Santander silver- lead-zinc project in Peru continues torepay Trevali Resources’ (TV-C, TREVF-o) investment with strong drill intercepts, encouraging grab samples, and inexpensive avenues by which to restart operations at the historic mine.

Trevali’s first focus at the past-producer is to refurbish and modestly expand the 1,000-tonne-perdaymill tostart processing material from an old tailings pond. The company’s second goal is to further expand the mill and develop a new mine at the project, which sits 215 km from Lima, in the Cerro de Pasco region of west-central Peru.

And exploration drilling and sampling is returning prospective results. Trevali first tested three targets that line up along just over 1 km of strike length known as Magistral. The zones, labelled according to location, all returned strong silver-lead-zinc intercepts.

The most recent results come from Magistral Central. Hole 60 returned 45.9 metres of 97.4 grams silver per tonne, 2.02% lead, 7.55% zinc and 0.19% copper from 86 metres depth. Hole 69 cut 28.6 metres grading 112.9 grams silver, 1.04% lead, 6.75% zinc and 0.14% copper from 75 metres. And hole 66 hit 34.3 metres averaging 94.8 grams silver, 1.12% lead, 5% zinc and 0.12% copper from 41 metres depth, including 10 metres of 200.1 grams silver, 1.78% lead, 11.43% zinc and 0.16% copper.

Magistral Central is equidistant from the silver-rich Magistral Norte zone and the base metal-rich Magistral Sur zone. Results from Magistral Sur include 54.5 metres grading 19.4 grams silver, 0.25% lead and 4.79% zinc from 151 metres depth in hole 48, and 30.6 metres averaging 11.3 grams silver, 0.23% lead and 6.09% zinc from 197 metres in hole 50.

The recent drill program at Santander is the first modern exploration on the 45 -sq.-km property. The Magistral drilling, which comprised 92 holes, tested those targets to 200 metres depth, though Trevali’s models indicate the zones have considerably greater depth potential.

Now, with first-pass drilling at the Magistral targets complete, Trevali has turned its attention to another, previously untested target. The old open-pit mine and mill at Santander is about 1.5 km southeast of the Magistral targets. Some 3 km north of the old mine, on trend and about 1 km east of the Magistral zones, is the Puajanca target.

At Puajanca, mineralization is exposed over an area 120 metres long, 20 metres wide and 25 metres thick, a much larger exposed area than at any of the Magistral targets. Trevali geologists collected 10 surface samples, some from the outcrop and others from the talus float.

The average grade of the samples came in at 262.6 grams silver, 13.4% lead and 7.7% zinc. The best sample returned 558 grams silver, 20.79% lead and 14.36% zinc.

Mineralization at Puajanca appears to be hosted in the Santander anticline, which also hosts the Santander open-pit mine orebody, and as such it appears the entire 3-km trend is prospective for silver-rich mineralization. And since Puajanca is at higher elevation than both the old Santander mine and the Magistral zones, Puajanca is interpreted to represent high-level leakage from a significant mineral zone at depth.

Trevali plans to move a drill to the target in the near future. Resource estimates for the Magistral zones and the old tailings pond are also pending.

The company is also awaiting a report detailing the costs to refurbish and expand the old mill to 1,500 tonnes per day. Capital costs to restart operations are expected to come in at less than $3 million and Trevali plans to be in operation before the end of the year.

Along with the mill, the Santander site came equipped with a 200-person camp and a 1.5- megawatt hydroelectric power plant. The old mine operated from 1957 to 1993, producing some 8 million tonnes of ore grading 7% zinc, 1-4% lead, and 60 grams silver.

Trevali is listed on the CNQ index, where it recently traded at $1.45. The company has a 52-week share price range of $1.20-1.50 and has 34 million shares issued. The company is in the process of listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange.