Ermitaño - a low key resource

We got a rather low-key PR from Evrim about the maiden resource at Ermitaño (link), which was surprising as there have been several PRs with some very good drill results recently (link).

Realistic metal prices....not!

This equates to approx. 3.5Mt @ 4.0 g/t Au and 68 g/t Ag or 4.93 g/t AuEq (358 g/t AgEq), which represents 95% of all new inferred resources found by First Majestic.

Lol

It looks very interesting, especially for an initial resource. However, there isn't  much information on the project, all we get is a simple plan map...

and a long section..

Low grade zones always are on a diet, whereas high-grade area (like small dogs) expand to fill as much space as possible...

These holes are very widely spaced (>100m), and have First Majestic inflated the tonnages by using a very big search radius (i.e. using all of the drill-hole data no matter how far apart they are)?

Here is a Leapfrog view of the data (link). I had to use trigonometry to estimate the hole lengths and dips, and so they will be a bit out.

My long section (looking north - east to the right). Showing DH intercepts and 50m, 100m and 200m radius buffers.

Drill-hole spacing to define a resource varies by the deposit style and metal distribution, so here are some examples for similar (Epithermal) deposits to see what they used for inferred resources:

La Guitarra - First Majestic


Los Gatos (Sunshine Precious Metals)


San Jose (Quintana Resources)


San Martin (First Majestic)


Santa Elena (First Majestic)


We can see that there are many different criteria, but in general we get:

• Indicated Resources ~50m sample/drill-hole spacing
• Inferred Resources >50m (but anything massively over 100m is unrealistic).

So First Majestic do seem to be pushing the limits for the resources limits at Ermitaño, nothing major, but a hole drilled between 06 and 10 would be a good idea to increase confidence, especially in the western area where the few, high-grade holes are >100m apart.

The fact that First majestic plan to drill 18,000m at Ermitano is very positive, it shows that they are confident in finding new zones and expanding on the known resources, but it would be nice to have a bit more information (e.g. where the heck is the Aitana vein located) showing targets and proposed exploration areas.