Significant Growth Potential Already Identified
After Summa Silver’s (TSXV SSVR / WKN A2P4EE) CEO Galen McNamara announced in an interview initial resource estimates for both of the company’s US silver projects for January, the company is now following through on its words – and reports a total of 78.715 million ounces of silver equivalent for the Hughes and Mogollon projects!
In detail, the Hughes project in Nevada accounts for 10.47 million ounces of silver equivalent (5.94 million ounces of silver and 0.05 million ounces of gold) with an average grade of 332 g/t silver equivalent (188 g/t silver and 1.59 g/t gold) in the higher indicated category. Additionally, there are inferred resources of 33.42 million ounces of silver equivalent (16.2 million ounces of silver and 0.19 million ounces of gold) at an average of 418 g/t silver equivalent (202.7 g/t silver and 2.38 g/t gold).
Furthermore, Summa reports inferred resources contained in tailings of 2.74 million ounces of silver equivalent (1.79 million ounces of silver and 0.011 million ounces of gold at 68 g/t silver equivalent (44.0 g/t silver and 0.26 g/t gold).
For the Mogollon Project in New Mexico, the company estimates the inferred resource at 32.08 million silver equivalent consisting of 12.12 million ounces of silver and 0.24 million ounces of gold at 367 g/t silver equivalent composed of 139 g/t silver and 2.72 g/t gold.
Clearly Visible Growth Potential
In our view, Summa Silver has made a more than promising start with both projects. However, and the company emphasizes this strongly, there is still considerable potential to expand the deposits at both Hughes and Mogollon!
The mineralization zones of Hughes, for example, are open for expansion, and furthermore, the project also contains the largely unexplored 4-kilometer extension of the highly productive Tonopah mining district. Here, according to reports, 175 million ounces of silver and 1.86 million ounces of gold were historically produced at grades of 679 g/t silver and 7.3 g/t gold along the original strike length. And this strike length was also 4 kilometers…
In any case, Summa has already started to unlock this additional potential of the Hughes Project and has already begun expansion drilling. A fully funded drilling program has been designed to both expand known mineralization zones and search for new veins in the eastern extension of the Tonopah District.
And in doing so, Summa reports that with the first expansion drilling conducted 85 meters away from the Ruby Zone, they have already intersected a target horizon as planned, which shows zones of epithermal quartz veins and breccias that even display visible silver sulfide mineralization in places!
The Summa team also sees clear upside for Mogollon. Here, the known mineralization zones also remain open for expansion. After all, the resource estimate presented now covers just 2.4 of the 77 kilometers of known vein and prospective structure of the project, most of which has not yet been explored using modern methods.
Conclusion: For any exploration company, the first resource estimate represents an important milestone, so it’s very understandable that Summa Silver’s CEO is proud of what has been achieved so far. Summa now has two of the rare, high-grade silver deposits in the USA and has made a very good start, in our opinion, with nearly 79 million ounces of silver equivalent – composed exclusively of precious metals. And this in a very efficient manner, as according to the company’s statements, discovery costs averaged just $0.29 per ounce, and each drill hole conducted in Nevada and New Mexico expanded the resources by an average of 915,291 ounces of silver! We also see it as very positive that Summa Silver has already identified clear potential for further growth of the deposits on both projects and has already begun to pursue this. We will definitely stay tuned to this exciting silver story!
