Yale refocuses its world-class fieldwork in Zacatecas
Alison Metcalfe
The blinders are off at Yale Resources Ltd’s silver properties in Mexico and Ian Foreman P.Geo., the Vancouver company’s geologist, president and CEO, said new drill program results ensure that Yale will earn the interest it seeks in the land parcels there.
Yale (TSXV:YLL) reported results from its phase one drill program at the Zacatecas Venture, under option from IMPACT Silver Corp. (TSXV:IPT), with a highlight intercept of 1,340 g/t silver over 0.80 metres.
Yale expects now to earn a 65-percent interest in the Mina San Jose, Zacatecas and Salvador properties shortly. The San Sabino property has yet to be drilled and therefore Yale has, to date, not earned its interest. Results from a recently completed trenching program at San Sabino will be released when received.
Both firms were encouraged by the most recent results, as all drill holes encountered mineralization; they plan a series of holes for a phase-two drill program in the fall. Further work will be focused on expanding the understanding of the high-grade mineralization, particularly at Mina San Jose. Phase-one drilling of San Sabino will be completed at that time.
Yale and IMPACT are now going to investigate the option of processing the mineralized dumps on the properties through the Veta Grande Mill, which IMPACT has an option to purchase. If test work is satisfactory, milling would then be done on a contract basis at rates to be negotiated.
"Processing the mineralized dumps will act as a bulk sample and, in addition, could generate cash flow for the partnership,” Foreman stated.
Later, he told Resourcex that he believes the market over-reacted with regards to the drill results news, reaffirming the importance of managing investor expectations.
“I think we’re very reasonable in setting our expectations of what success would be at Zacatecas. We knew we were going to get some intersections; we had visuals at all the drill holes; but it’s ultimately the lab that tells you how successful you’ve been and it turns out that our intervals were narrower than expected, though the grades were exceptional.”
In no way does this news sound the death knell for Yale’s project, Foreman stated.
“What it does is it refocuses us and when we settle the bills and get our 65-percent interest in the property, that’s a real milestone. To earn an interest in someone else’s property – and to do it in less than six months – is ridiculously quick. Many times, it takes years and years to earn your interest in a property, so this is actually a first for Yale, in which we are going to be able to earn an interest in someone else’s property and then we will have to work as partners with IMPACT.
“There’s a real significance to that. Above and beyond the fact that we got a couple of narrow intersections, we now can move forward on investigating the opportunities for the property. We can look into what it will cost to process the mineralized dumps on the properties. And we can then look at the greater economics of working in the area.
“All of a sudden, we can take the blinders off. A lot of the time, it’s all about just earning your interest in a property.”
(The intersection turned out to be narrow, Foreman said, because Yale expected intervals of two to three metres wide. At Salvador, because of previous mining at those widths, the vein is exposed no longer. Expectations were that earlier mining operations took out only the vein.)
“So, our expectation was one and one-half to two meters in width. And we’re getting intervals in the 80-centimeter range,” he said.
“I think a meter seems to be a mental threshold for a lot of people. What they forget is that when we’re talking about having 1.3 kilos of silver per tonne, on the Mina San Jose property, you’re looking at a scenario where at today’s values, that’s greater than $500 a tonne of material. That’s significant mineralization.”
Within the past year, Yale decided to concentrate its efforts on developing its properties in mineral-rich Mexico. As its position in the mining-friendly country expands steadily, its investors are being urged to stay the course as its market value gathers momentum.
Currently Yale has three properties in Mexico: An option to earn 75 percent in the Urique Project, an option to earn 80 percent in the Zacatecas Venture, and the wholly owned Carol Property.
The Zacatecas Venture is actually made up of four properties and each has old workings dating from the Spanish colonial period. All are within eight km of the Veta Grande processing plant, which IMPACT recently announced that it has an option to acquire
