IVR hits 13,302g/t silver outside its proposed mine plan

Our development stage silver Investment Investigator Silver (ASX: IVR) just released the first results from its advanced stage silver project in South Australia.

IVR’s project is already well advanced with a Mining Lease Application recently lodged.

With the current round of drilling IVR is looking to convert more of its resource into higher confidence intervals ahead of Final Investment Decision (FID) on the project.

More confidence in the early years of production is something that financiers are more willing to fund (and with that, lower risk generally means more attractive financing terms).

The results from this week returned some seriously high grades outside the current pit design, headlined by 4m at 5,448g/t silver, including one metre at 13,302g/t silver:

(source)

There are still more assays to come in, but here is where this weeks results came from relative to IVR’s current planned pit outline:

(source)

And here are the three areas where IVR said further drilling could feed into the ongoing studies and mine planning:

(source)

IVR also drilled targets away from the mine, where any high grade, near surface discoveries could one day extend a future mine life.

The standout was Theseus, a new silver system less than 10km from Paris, found by sampling a 20 year old core that had never assayed before, with no drill holes ever drilled nearby:

(source)

This hole was previously drilled in 2007 by a separate company hunting for uranium, with the core not even cut or sampled and had been preserved in the South Australian Drill Core Library.

So this is a positive sign that there is further mineralisation in the area but will need further drilling to determine if this is more than a one off hit.

A further ~30,000m of drilling has been planned, expected to start at Paris this month and recently IVR got the mining lease application lodged, we covered that here.

A quick recap of IVR’s project:

IVR’s project is advanced stage with a Definitive Feasibility Study delivered in Feb which showed:

• A$1.154BN pre-tax Net Present Value (NPV),
• 93% Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and
• An 11 month payback at US$80/oz silver.
• From A$260M CAPEX.

You can see our deep dive into the raise and DFS from March here.

(source)

IVR’s project has a 57M ounce silver JORC resource at an average grade of 73g/t - one of Australia's highest grade pure play silver projects.

IVR is currently drilling its project to try and open up new areas of its resource that could improve economics early into the projects life.

The current at the main project area is focused on 2 main areas:

1. Grade control / infill drilling - drilling in and around the existing resource to increase confidence in the orebody model (reduces risks when mining).

(source)

2. Resource conversion and pit expansion - looking to extend the boundaries of the current mine plan and bring more ounces into the mine plan.

(source)

A couple of months ago IVR started building out the team to construct the project, filling roles including

• CFO,
• Project Directors (x2),
• Principal Mining Engineer, and
• Senior Exploration Geologist.

You can see our coverage on this here.

What do we want to see IVR do next?

Permitting 🔄

Now that the DFS has been published, we will be watching IVR go through all of the permitting workstreams on its project.

We especially want to see the project get a mining licence and an environmental permit granted for the project as soon as possible.

Recently IVR submitted the Mining Lease Application (MLA) (source)

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

1. 🔄 Environmental permits
2. 🔄 Project infrastructure permits
3. 🔄 Mining licence granted

Project financing 🔄

The DFS set the CAPEX at A$260M. We want to see IVR make progress on debt/equity financing while the silver price is supportive.

Now that the DFS has been published, the next major catalyst for IVR will be project financing.

While permitting is progressing, we want to see IVR make progress on debt/equity financing commitments for the project CAPEX of A$260M.

1. 🔄 Lender engagement and technical due diligence
2. 🔲 Financing commitments

Grade control drilling 🔄

We want to see IVR complete infill drilling at its resource and upgrade the resource in terms of classification.

Drilling on regional targets 🔄

We also want to see IVR drill out the 15km corridor of targets that sit around its 57M ounce JORC resource estimate.

The ultimate success from these drill programs would be a discovery similar to IVR’s existing resource.

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

• ✅ Geophysics/Geochemistry work
• ✅ Identify drill targets
• ✅ Drilling starts
• 🔄 Drilling results