Golden Minerals Co. [AUMN-TSX, NYSE American] shares were active Wednesday August 26 after the company said it has received a second set of assay results from its resource definition program at the Rodeo gold-silver project in Durango State, Mexico.
Golden Minerals is a Colorado-based precious metals exploration and development company with a portfolio of projects in Mexico, Argentina and Nevada. They include the Velardena properties in Durango State, which contains two underground mines and two mills, one of which has been leased to Hecla Mining [HL-NYSE] since 2015. The mines are currently held on care and maintenance.
Rodeo is a 1,866-hectare gold project located approximately 80 km west of the company’s Velardena properties and processing mills. Golden acquired the Rodeo property subject to a royalty due to La Cuesta International Ltd. in 2015. Prior to that agreement, exploration by other companies identified a gold-bearing system exposed at surface. Golden subsequently conducted a 2,080-metre core drilling program in 2016 and outlined a potentially open pit minable, high-grade resource as reported in a NI 43-101 compliant technical report dated January 26, 2017.
It hosts an indicated resource of 400,000 tonnes, grading 3.3 g/t gold, 11 g/t silver or 46,000 ounces of gold and 200,000 ounces of silver.
In early July, 2020, the company said it planned to drill 20 holes to better define the high-grade core of the Rodeo deposit.
On Wednesday, the company released assay results from 11 diamond drill holes that show wide zones of high-grade, near-surface gold mineralization. Mineralized material consists of highly silicified epithermal veins and breccias hosted in felsic volcanic rocks.
Highlights include hole 20-010, which returned a 16.1-metre interval of 2.91 g/t gold and 8.3 g/t silver from 12.8 metres to 28.9 metres, including 9.2 metres of 4.05 g/t gold and 12.6 g/t silver from 19.7 metres to 28.9 metres.
It should be noted that intervals announced in the press release represent drilled length. It is expected that true thickness is approximately 80% of drilled length as drill holes were drilled at a high angle to the gold mineralization that dips at approximately 25 degrees to the northeast.
“We continue to intersect thick intervals of near-surface, high-grade gold mineralization at Rodeo,” said Golden Minerals President and CEO Warren Rehn. “The results of this infill drilling program are showing an improvement in gold grades on average compared to previous drill hole results,’’ he said. “This further supports our plan to develop the project and process this high-grade material in our oxide plant at Velardena.’’
Golden Minerals shares rallied on the news, rising 3.85% or $0.02 to 54 cents in light trading volume. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of 80 cents and 20 cents. The company recently raised $8.6 million from a bought deal offering of 20.5 million shares, priced at 42 cents.