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Enter Symbol
or Name
USA
CA



Silver Bull Resources Inc
Symbol SVB
Shares Issued 159,072,657
Close 2014-12-19 C$ 0.155
Market Cap C$ 24,656,262
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Silver Bull considering small Ag mine at Sierra Mojada

2014-12-23 08:25 ET - News Release

Mr. Tim Barry reports

SILVER BULL PROVIDES 2014 END OF YEAR UPDATE FOR THE SIERRA MOJADA PROJECT, COAHULIA, NORTHERN MEXICO

Silver Bull Resources Inc. is providing a 2014 year-end update and outlook to its shareholders. The company is focused on advancing the company's flagship Sierra Mojada silver-zinc project, located in the historic Sierra Mojada mining district in the state of Coahuila, northern Mexico.

Silver Bull's pivot to zinc

As announced in Silver Bull's press release dated Sept. 26, 2014, due to the strong rise in the zinc price over the last 12 months coupled with the strong long-term outlook for the metal, the company has begun assessing the potential of the high-grade zinc oxide mineralization which sits underneath and adjacent to the silver mineralization seen at Sierra Mojada.

To this purpose, the company has begun an internal remodelling of the zinc resource, much of which was not included in the resource outlined in Silver Bull's preliminary economic assessment on the silver mineralization released in December, 2013. Discussions are also under way with various firms for metallurgical work to further test the fuming potential of the zinc, and management recently visited a number of zinc kilning facilities in Yunnan province, China, to assess their capability of processing ore from Sierra Mojada. Work on this will continue in 2015.

The extent and grade of the zinc oxide mineralization seen at Sierra Mojada, coupled with already existing infrastructure, which includes a functioning railway 300 metres from the project, suggest the zinc could potentially be modelled as a stand-alone mine. In addition to providing tremendous optionality to the silver at Sierra Mojada, the company receives very little valuation for the zinc, and this work will go a long way to better defining its value to the market.

Silver resource at Sierra Mojada

Despite the drop in the price of silver during 2014, the company remains extremely positive on the silver orebody defined at Sierra Mojada. Using a $16-per-ounce silver price and 95-cent-per-pound zinc price, the preliminary economic assessment the company released late last year still shows a positive aftertax net present value at 5 per cent of $135-million with an aftertax internal rate of return of 10.4 per cent and shows how robust the project is even in a volatile price environment. The indicated resource of 163 million ounces of silver (71.1 million tonnes at an average grade of 71.5 grams per tonne silver using a 25 g/t silver cut-off) defined thus far is one of the largest undeveloped silver resources in Mexico, and sampling by the company immediately adjacent to the defined orebody shows this resource remains open in north, east and western directions.

During 2015 the company also intends to do an internal examination on the potential for a smaller silver open pit than the one proposed in the PEA. The focus will be to target the at-surface silver mineralization with a smaller project. Although a smaller project would produce fewer ounces than proposed in the PEA, the low strip and smaller plant would be expected to significantly reduce the overall capital costs needed to put the project into production.

Permitting at the Sierra Mojada project

One of the main focuses for 2014 has been obtaining a number of permits necessary for any mine development at Sierra Mojada. The main permits the company has targeted include: water rights, the issuance of surface title (presently much of the project sits on federal land) and continued work on environmental permitting. Although the full environmental permit cannot be issued until the project has a full feasibility study and is ready for construction, many of the individual studies needed for the permit can begin at the project's current stage. This work will allow the company to reduce the time required to potentially complete a feasibility study when market conditions improve.

Treasury and sale of the Ndjole asset in Gabon and market conditions

The company is also pleased to report the company remains in a strong financial position. Presently it has approximately $1.5-million (U.S.) (unaudited) of cash and cash equivalents and expects to close the sale of its Ndjole asset in Gabon in January, which will bring a further $1.5-million (U.S.) of non-dilutive cash into the treasury.

With the very challenging market conditions seen in 2014, the company has remained very cognizant about the need to remain as prudent as possible with the existing treasury and putting its capital to work only where it adds the most value to the project. It has been almost two years since Silver Bull's last capital raise in February, 2013, which brought in net proceeds of $8.1-million (U.S.). Subject to the work program carried out by Silver Bull, the cash in the treasury after the completion of the Ndjole sale can carry the company into 2016 without the need to raise additional capital.

Outlook

Silver Bull remains bullish on the fundamentals for both silver and zinc. The challenge of unwinding the loose monetary policy seen globally in recent times is immense. Any threat of inflation or unforeseeable black swan event will see silver (and gold) continue to be a haven for wealth preservation.

Furthermore, with the closing of a number of major zinc mines now actually happening, coupled with both a lack of new zinc mines coming on line to replace this lost production and an expected increase in zinc demand, the company anticipates continued tightening in the zinc supply for the foreseeable future. This squeeze on the supply of zinc is now a reality and has been recognized by the market, with zinc outperforming almost all metals over the last 12 months. The company remains very excited about the zinc potential at Sierra Mojada.

Sierra Mojada is one of the largest undeveloped silver and zinc deposits in Mexico. It has excellent infrastructure, it lies three hours from an international airport with a paved road right to site, it has a functioning railway right to site, runs on grid power and it has a skilled mining work force to draw upon in the local area. The resource provides exposure to both the precious and base metals markets and has the potential to be scaled in size depending on metal prices. In short, the company believes there are not many projects like this in the world. It is also very significant that many countries around the world are becoming less and less viable for mining and exploration activities due to increasing political risk. Mexico, however, remains one of the top mining jurisdictions in the world.

The technical information of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Tim Barry, MAusIMM, chartered professional, a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101.

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