May 07, 2013 (ACCESSWIRE-TNW via COMTEX) — VANCOUVER – (Financial Press) Gold prices are expected to recover in the coming weeks and months according to the Reuters Precious Metals Poll of analysts. The news was welcomed by El Tigre executives, who also recently announced the completion of the company’s drilling program.
Image: http://www.accesswire.com/images/322/ELS drill roads_small.jpgMost of the 29 banking and brokerage analysts and consultants polled expected prices to find support and stay above the $1,400 mark. The majority of analysts, 20 out of 29, expect gold to end 2013 above $1,450 per ounce and 6 analysts, including GoldCore, saw gold above $1,650 per ounce by the end of 2013.
Both gold and silver prices rose globally on Monday. Gold started the week by edging higher Monday, trading around $1475 per ounce. Gold futures jumped 4.2 percent to $1,453.60 an ounce on the Comex in New York last week, the most since January 2012.
The news comes on the heels of El Tigre’s recently concluded drilling program targeting the stockwork zone that was started in January 18, 2013, with 38 holes completed and 4,862 meters drilled.
The company owns 100 per cent of nine mining concessions, eight comprising 431 square kilometers located in the Sierra El Tigre, northeastern Sonora State in Mexico (the El Tigre property).
“The current drill results continue to show the consistency of the target” says Stuart Ross CEO of El Tigre Silver.
The El Tigre mine was operated from 1903 to 1938, and it is estimated to have produced 70 to 75 million ounces of silver and 325,000 and 350,000 ounces of gold.
The drilling program has been focused on the southern 1.2 kilometre zone that has potential for bulk mineable gold associated with the historic high grade silver veins. All the gold and silver intercepts are oxidized to a reddish brown color after pyrite and base metal minerals.
“Investors need to look at the many high grades of both gold and silver found in the drilling program,” says Steve Craig, El Tigre’s vice president of exploration.
The third round of assays from nine more drill holes (ET13-58 to 66) has been received. These drill holes were located on Mula Mountain both north and south of the historic Brown Shaft over a strike length of 450 meters. El Tigre believes that the property hosts a classic caldera-related, epithermal low sulphide vein system that extends 5.3 kilometers along strike.
An example of the current results shows the highest gold and silver assay that was reported was in Hole ET13-66 with 0.4 meters of 3,030 g/t Ag (88.5 opt Ag) and 235 g/t Au (6.86 opt Au). This interval was included in 1.4 metres of 115.34 g/t Au Equivalent- 74.2 g/t Au and 2057 g/t Ag.
The lab is currently re-assaying this and other intervals from new pulp samples to confirm these high gold and silver values. The company also reports these intervals as “core length” and is not “true width” because not enough information exists at this time to determine true width.
“There were no drilling problems,” says Craig. “The rock is drilled easy and daily advancement was excellent with superior recoveries.”
El Tigre completed the drilling between January 18 and April 12, 2013, during this time the drillers had a two-week hiatus.
“Two and a half months for almost 5,000 metres including mobilization and demobilization is an excellent time line,” adds Ross.
The baseline data is still being developed and recorded as El Tigre is currently awaiting assays for about ten more holes.
Drilling was performed by Major Drilling de Mexico, SA de CV from Hermosillo, Sonora. The core is retrieved by El Tigre geologists and taken to the secure core storage building for measuring, logging, splitting and bagging. Standards and blanks are inserted randomly every 20 samples to ensure a high standard of quality assurance-quality control during the assaying process. Prepared samples are then transported by El Tigre geologists to Hermosillo to the Skyline Laboratories, Inc. shipment facility.
From there they are transported by Skyline personnel to Tucson, Arizona, where they are crushed and pulped for assaying in the Skyline lab. Gold is derived from a 30 gram charge, fire assayed and determined by gravimetric methods. Silver is determined by first dissolving the sample in aqua regia followed by Atomic Absorption (AA). Over limits are determined by fire assay and gravimetric methods.
“If our fast-track approach continues without encountering any problems, the technical report should be finished on schedule around the end of June,” says Craig.
Part of the exploration work was to obtain information that would be available for a planned revision to the company’s 43-101 technical report which is expected to contain a new resource model.
El Tigre Silver Corp. is a publicly-traded company committed to becoming a leader in mineral exploration and development while optimizing shareholder value. www.eltigresilvercorp.com
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