Mr. John Lee reports
SILVER ELEPHANT PULACAYO DRILL-HOLE REPORTS 99-METER INTERSECTION GRADING 27.8 G/T GALLIUM, 9.7G/T INDIUM, 21.2 G/T SILVER, 1.1% ZINC, AND 0.5% LEAD IN BOLIVIA
Silver Elephant Mining Corp. has identified multiple occurrences of gallium (Ga) and indium (In) in selected drill core at its flagship Pulacayo silver-lead-zinc project in Potosi department, Bolivia.
While conducting a routine review of the Pulacayo project drill hole database, the company recognized several wide intervals of gallium and indium mineralization from four diamond drill holes. The assays of the four drill holes (PUD 28 to 31) are tabulated herein. Hole PUD 28 contained a 99-metre intersection grading 27.8 grams per tonne gallium, 9.7 g/t indium, 21.2 g/t silver, 1.1 per cent zinc and 0.5 per cent lead.
The company is highly encouraged by the gallium and indium results and will continue to evaluate this potential given:
- Gallium and indium are typically associated with zinc in polymetallic deposits similar to Pulacayo. The Pulacayo project has a total indicated resource of 106.7 million ounces of silver, 1.4 billion pounds of zinc and 690 million pounds of lead published in the technical report dated Oct. 13, 2020, and tabulated herein.
- The four drill holes were drilled between 2003 and 2005 by a previous operator. Gallium and indium results have not been used in any resource calculation to date.
- The wide gallium and indium intersection with consistent grades from PUD 28 suggests the presence of additional mineralization in PUD 28's surroundings.
The company has reviewed all available data, selected 171 samples from 12 drill holes, and submitted them to SGS Laboratories Services to assay for gallium and indium. The samples were selected for testing because of their proximity to PUD 28 to 31.
John Lee, chief executive officer of Silver Elephant, comments: "There is lot of work ahead to establish Pulacayo as a potentially strategic source of gallium and indium supply to the North American market. We are cautiously optimistic of exploring this new dimension at Pulacayo to take advantage of increasing demand for gallium and indium (and rising prices) in high-tech 5G and LCD applications."
Both indium and gallium prices are trading at approximately $10/ounce, with prices doubling since 2020. On Aug. 1, 2023, China began restricting exports of gallium and germanium as part of its broader export control rules, with a focus on limiting the exports of critical minerals, including gallium, germanium and graphite.
Indium is an essential ingredient in solar panels, touch screens and LCD (liquid-crystal display) panels while gallium is used in most advanced semiconductor chipsets in 5G applications with reduced power consumption and heat generation versus silicon counterparts.
Total annual world gallium and indium production is estimated by U.S. Geological Survey (2022) to be 15 million oz and 32 million oz, respectively. China currently accounts for over 90 per cent of the global gallium production and over 65 per cent of the global indium production, as well as a substantial portion of the world's exports.
Quality assurance/quality control
An industry-standard quality assurance/quality control program was used during the various drill campaigns. All core and other samples were split with half being bagged, labelled and shipped directly to the laboratory. The other 50-per-cent split is retained in a secure facility. Both standards and blanks were inserted at regular intervals within each sample batch prior to shipment to the laboratory. These comprised 3 to 5 per cent (depending on the phase of the drill campaign) of analyzed material. For further details, the reader is referred to the National Instrument 43-101 cited above.
Qualified person
The technical contents of this news release have been prepared under the supervision of Bill Pincus, who is an independent consultant of the company. Mr. Pincus is a qualified person as defined by the guidelines of NI 43-101.
About Silver Elephant Mining Corp.
Silver Elephant is a silver mining company, with its flagship Pulacayo-Paca silver project in production since October, 2023, in Bolivia.
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