Endeavour Silver takes on second Mexican project (August 20, 2006)

Vancouver — With one producing operation now under its belt, Endeavour Silver (EDR-T, EDRGF-O) is expanding its portfolio of Mexican silver projects through an option to purchase the Minas Nuevas properties in Chihuahua state.

The company will pay US$3 million in cash over 30 months for the acquisition, located in the historic Parral silver-lead-zinc district. More than 60 small mines have operated in the area, some since the mid-1600s.

Past production from the district is estimated at more than 31 million tonnes of ore ranging from several thousand grams of silver per tonne in the shallow oxide, narrow vein systems, to between 100 and 300 grams silver (plus lead and zinc) over broader widths in the sulphide, hangingwall breccia zones.

Asarco, now a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico (GMBXF-O), operated several mines in the region throughout the 1900s and more recently, Silver Standard Resources (SSO-T, SSRI-Q) purchased its Veta Colorada project (with a historic resource of 4 million tonnes grading 250 grams silver per tonne) from Grupo Mexico for US$3.5 million in late 2005.

Silver mineralization in the Parral district is primarily hosted in the Veta Colorada vein structure, which extends over 10 km and ranges in width from 1 metre up to 50 metres where good hangingwell breccias are developed.

Endeavour’s Minas Nuevas properties cover 7.5 km of the Veta Colorada trend — mostly the downdip portion of Silver Standard’s project — but two areas (La Blanca-Lupita and Minas Nuevas Norte) of vein surface exposure are included along with some past underground workings.

Underground sampling conducted in the lower workings of the Morena area at La Blanca-Lupita in the mid-1970s returned grades of 318 grams silver over 220 metres and 239 grams silver over 305 metres with vein widths of 1 to 1.5 metres.

In the late 1990s, Pan American Silver (paa-t, paas-q) channel sampled along 100 metres of vein length in the upper levels of the La Blanca mine with grades ranging from 181 grams silver to 860 grams silver across widths of 7 and 1.5 metres, respectively. Additional channel sampling across the vein at both La Blanca and Minas Nuevas Norte returned numerous, consecutive intervals of high-grade silver mineralization. Several holes drilled by Pan American intersected good silver values (at La Blanca) and also indicated significant lead-zinc values.

The Veta Colorada crosses through Endeavour’s Minas Nuevas project at about 450-500 metres depth; its downdip potential has never been drill-tested. Elsewhere in the district, high-grade mineralization at the La Prieta mine has been traced to at least 800 metres depth.

The company has begun an initial program of prospecting, mapping and sampling prior to developing its drill program.