Extorre hits new high-grade zone at Cerro Morro

Vancouver – A new high-grade discovery at Extorre Gold Mines‘ (XG-T, XG-X) Cerro Morro project in southern Argentina has propelled its share price to an all-time high.

The company drilled the holes on the new Zoe discovery, 2.5 km east of the Martina shoot and on the same Escondida structure. Extorre is now interpreting the Zoe target as a roughly 2-km-long east-west dilation zone with 650 metres already defined.

Stand-out hole MD1204 hit 4.84 metres grading 64.6 grams gold per tonne and 7,530 grams silver per tonne from 89 metres depth, and included a 1.4 metre section carrying 227.3 grams gold and 25,428 grams silver.

Forty metres east of MD1204, discovery hole MD1191 returned 2.8 metres grading 2.4 grams gold and 316 grams silver from 121 metres, and 40 metres south of that, hole MD1196 cut 1.3 metres averaging 13.4 grams gold and 1,750 grams silver from 139 metres depth.

Only the three assay results were released, while Extorre is pushing the lab to have the remaining 18 holes from Zoe analyzed as quickly as possible, prioritizing them ahead of drill core from its other projects.

Extorre started exploring the Zoe target based on a surface outcrop of only 0.34 grams gold per tonne and 115 grams silver per tonne, which was enough for the company to describe it as a blind discovery. Adding to the company’s excitement, its visual inspection of the core suggests that drilling has just entered the mineralized zone and it continues at depth.

Extorre’s share price jumped $1.30 or 18% to close at $8.53 on the news after hitting an all-time high of $8.75 in mid-day trading.

The company reports that mineralization appears to be typical of the known Escondida structure. Extorre saw silver mineral acanthite in many cores and five showed electrum, while base metals and pyrite are accessory minerals.

Extorre has two drills targeting the Zoe area, one drilling 160-metre step-outs and the other 80-metre centres. The company has two other drills at Cerro Morro targeting other veins.

In addition to exploring its Cerro Morro project, Extorre has two drills turning at Cerro Puntudo, 220 km west. The project is immediately south of Coeur d’Alene Mines (CDM-T, CDE-N) and Mirasol Resources‘ (MRZ-V) Joaquin silver project. Extorre also has results pending on its Union Domes gold project 18 km south of Cerro Morro, and released results from its Falcon gold-silver project, 80 km northwest, in February.

For its Cerro Morro project, Extorre expects to receive a response to its environmental impact statement in the next few weeks, have a pre-feasibility study done in June and a resource update completed by the fall.

The current resource for Escondida is 590,000 indicated tonnes grading 18.9 grams gold and 805 grams silver. The total inferred resource, incorporating several surrounding zones, is 1.97 million tonnes grading 3 grams gold and 190 grams silver.  

The company is spending roughly $2.5 million a month with six rigs operating and has about $33 million in the bank.

Exeter Resource (XTR-T, XRA-X) spun out Extorre in March 2010 as an Argentina-focused play, allowing Exeter to focus on its sizable Caspiche gold-copper project in northern Chile.