Silver Mines to get rigs spinning at McPhillamys style targets

Silver Mines will start drilling at the Elsienora Project, adjacent to its Tuena gold project
A substantial review of data compiled by previous exploration has highlighted the Picker Prospect as having potential to host ‘McPhillamys’ style gold mineralisation
Other silver and gold targets within Elsienora include Cuddyong, Nobbs Reef and the Elsienora Prospects

Special Report: Silver Mines will start drilling at its Elsienora Project in NSW, where a review of exploration data has highlighted the potential to host ‘McPhillamys’ style gold mineralisation.

While the company continues to advance its flagship Bowdens Silver Project, Silver Mines (ASX:SVL) is also set to complete between 2000 and 3000 metres of diamond drilling at Elsienora which is adjacent to its Tuena gold project.

An extensive review of data compiled by previous exploration (1970s to 2019) has underscored the potential of the project’s Picker prospect. Previously identified by Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK), the prospect is an gold-arsenic-silver-molybdenum-lead-antimony soil anomaly with a strike of over 1.4km and a peak grade of more than 20 parts per billion gold.

The target zone is within the Godolphin-Copperhania Fault Corridor approximately 60km south of Regis Resources’ (ASX:RRL) McPhillamys gold deposit. One of the largest undeveloped open-pit gold resources in Australia, McPhillamys has an ore reserve of 60.8Mt at 1.04g//t for 2.02Moz.

Historical drilling results from Elsienora have generated grades of up to 29 metres at 1.53g/t gold from surface, 8m at 3.14g/t gold from only 30m and 21m at 0.89g/t gold from 207m.

SVL will focus on the silver and gold targets at Pickers Prospect as well as Cuddyong, Nobbs Reef and the Elsienora Prospects.

Managing director Jo Battershill said: “We’re off to a great start in 2025 and are looking forward to testing these exciting regional targets at the Elsienora Project, which we forms part of the Tuena gold portfolio.

“The project has been considered highly prospective for both orogenic gold and volcanogenic massive sulphide mineralisation (VMS) styles over the years. Its most recent owner Alkane considered the project prospective for a third mineralisation style – sulphide-rich disseminated gold-silver-barium (epigenetic VMS style), which is analogous to McPhillamys.

“Since acquiring Elsienora in 2023 we’ve carried out a substantial review of historic data which has confirmed significant underexplored potential for gold and silver mineralisation, in particular at Picker prospect.”

The program will start this quarter after Silver Mines ended 2024 with an upgraded resource at Bowdens of 71.7Moz contained silver.

Looking ahead at Bowdens

The 7.5% boost solidified Bowdens’ status as Australia’s largest undeveloped silver deposit and one of the largest in the world.

It’s also one of the most leveraged projects to the silver commodity price globally following a fine tuning of the metallurgical model and an improved mine design to support a smaller footprint with reduced disturbance.

Battershill said Silver Mines had a pathway to regaining the project’s consent firmly in hand.

While the company could not provide a definitive timeline on the regulatory process, he remained very confident that the development consent would be returned in due course by the NSW state government.

This article was developed in collaboration with Silver Mines, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.