Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. is pleased to provide an update of its Sunbird exploration program at the Séguéla gold Project located in Côte d’Ivoire. In September of 2021, the Company made a construction decision to proceed to build a 3,750 tonnes per day open pit mine at the Séguéla gold project, with first gold pour expected in mid-2023 (refer to Fortuna news release dated September 29, 2021).
Paul Weedon, Senior Vice President of Exploration, commented, “Exploration results at Séguéla continue to support the high-grade trend we have seen from the recent drilling at the Sunbird Prospect, and with all results now to hand, the Company is looking forward to seeing a maiden inferred resource estimate for Sunbird.”
“Mineralization at Sunbird remains open along strike and at depth, where coarse visible gold seen in diamond drill core is supported by high gold assay grades, with the high-grade core extending more than 250 meters in strike lengthSignificant upside remains at depth and additional drilling has commenced to test this potential,” he added.
Séguéla gold Project, Côte d’Ivoire
Exploration drilling at the Séguéla gold Project continues to advance the Sunbird Prospect with a recently completed 7-hole, 1,887-meter program testing the continuity of mineralization at depth and along strike to the south.
Drilling was primarily focused on providing better resolution of the extent of the central high-grade core identified in earlier drilling ahead of the anticipated preparation of a maiden mineral inferred resource estimate, with assays highlighting the continuity of the mineralization. The high-grade mineralization remains open at depth and down-plunge, with exploration step-out drilling underway to test a further 100 to 150 meters down dip.
With the receipt of these results, work has commenced on the preparation of a maiden mineral inferred resource for the Sunbird Prospect which is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022. Full results received for this recent 7-hole program are listed in Appendix 1.
An 8-hole program to test the depth potential has commenced with 2 holes completed to date. Geological logging of the drill core from SGRD1403 recorded at least 4 visible gold specks of up to 2-millimeter diameter, with the characteristics of the mineralization consistent with previous drilling at Sunbird.
Quality Assurance & Quality Control (QA-QC)
All drilling data completed by the Company utilized the following procedures and methodologies. All drilling was carried out under the supervision of the Company’s personnel. All RC drilling at Séguéla used a 5.25-inch face sampling pneumatic hammer with samples collected into 60-liter plastic bags.
Samples were kept dry by maintaining enough air pressure to exclude groundwater inflow. If water ingress exceeded the air pressure, RC drilling was stopped, and drilling converted to diamond core tails. Once collected, RC samples were riffle split through a three-tier splitter to yield a 12.5% representative sample for submission to the analytical laboratory. The residual 87.5% sample were stored at the drill site until assay results were received and validated. Coarse reject samples for all mineralized samples corresponding to significant intervals are retained and stored on-site at the company-controlled core yard.
