VANCOUVER, BC, Jan. 18,
2023 /CNW/ - Outcrop Silver & Gold
Corporation (TSXV: OCG) (OTCQX: OCGSF) (DE: MRG1)
("Outcrop") is pleased to share an open letter to
shareholders from Joseph Hebert,
President and Chief Executive Officer.
Dear Fellow Shareholders:
I wanted to specially thank shareholders for their continued
support and take the opportunity to reflect on our progress in 2022
and discuss objectives for an important year ahead.
We are One of the Top
Performing Silver Stocks on the TSXV in 2022
2022 has been a volatile year with political instability, high
inflation, and wide value swings in many asset classes. Precious
metals had a very mixed performance in 2022, with sizeable
fluctuations seen during the year, reflecting monetary policy
tightening, rising interest rates, further economic weakness,
geopolitical tensions and persistently high inflation. The
COMEX gold futures contract closed at $1,826 per ounce on December 30, 2022, down 0.13% for the year, and
the COMEX silver futures contract posted a 2.95% gain and settled
at $24 per ounce on December 30, 2022.
As a shareholder, share price is the metric that counts the
most. Outcrop made significant share price gains in 2022, as shown
in the chart below:
Despite volatility, Outcrop Silver performed strongly and posted
an 84.37% gain in 2022 with strong volume, one of the top junior
silver exploration companies on the TSX Venture Exchange. Outcrop
Silver has fared better than many junior resource companies
negatively affected by volatility. The participants in our
latest financing (September 22, 2022)
have seen over one hundred percent gains. Few other silver-focused
peers can show comparable performance to Outcrop Silver over the
trailing twelve months to date.
Outcrop Silver has received continuous coverage from Research
Capital, which has recommended a speculative buy with a forecasted
price of C$0.75. The Research Capital
forecast is an independent prediction of future value growth for
Outcrop Silver.
Advancing a World Class Silver
District
We continue to demonstrate with stellar grades in drilling that
we have a high-quality discovery at our flagship Santa Ana silver project. Outcrop Silver has
completed 325 core holes totaling 55,937 metres. Thirteen
high-grade shoots have been identified to date. On 6,000 hectares
of titled and fully permitted mineral concessions, drilling and
surface and underground exploration demonstrate near continuous
prospective vein zones extending from north of the Royal Santa
Mines, 18 kilometres southwest to the Frias Mine and then another
15 kilometres to Outcrop Silver's applications further
southwest.
More than 60 kilometres of vein zones are identified across
Santa Ana. The vein zones are
typically comprised of parallel vein sets over an area two to three
kilometres wide. It is inferred that the 60 vein zones provide
cumulatively over 150 kilometres of individual veins. This vein
footprint rivals famous silver camps such as Fresnillo and Guanajuato in Mexico.
Santa Ana silver and gold
values measured as weighted average grades of intervals above the
expected compliant resource cut-off of 200 g eq Ag/t fall in the
upper 25th percentile of grade worldwide. DH274 drilled
in August 2022 returned a stunning
15,941 g eq Ag/t! These high-grade drill intercepts will be
reflected in the maiden compliant resource estimation underway by
Micon International.
Outcrop Silver has an excellent opportunity to drill its
high-grade shoots off at depth. Las Maras shoot is drilled to over
350 metres, while the average drilled depth for the twelve other
shoots is only 170 metres. Low risk definition drilling of open
mineralization to depth could add over 100 percent to existing
potential resource volume. Fortunately, veins and mineralization at
Santa Ana typically outcrop or
sub-crop. This allows target identification through basic surface
prospecting and trenching of mapped veins or veins projected by
geophysics or soil grids. Targets are frequently supported by
historic colonial era and artisan mining and kilogram equivalent
silver per tonne assays at surface are common. Eleven near-term
additional targets have been identified, with the historic 100%
owned Frias mine showing
underground samples to 10,216 g Ag/t. Locally targets show vein
widths of 3.5 metres (4 metres in float boulders). Trench and float
samples from these new undrilled targets assay up to 94 g Au/t and
9,738 g Ag/t.
The Best Team
Our Colombia team, management,
directors, and consulting support persistently work to add value to
the company. In May, we made an important addition to our
management team, hiring Guillermo
Hernandez as Vice President of Exploration. Guillermo has
over 15 years of exploration in all aspects of economic geology,
coming to Outcrop Silver from Lundin
Gold, where he worked at Fruta del Norte. His 3D geologic
and grade modeling skills have been invaluable in working with
Micon International, our independent QP, to produce our maiden
resource report.
In June, we brought on Kathy Li,
with 15 years of experience in investor relations as Director of
Investor Relations, coming to Outcrop Silver from Silvercorp. Kathy
is adept at putting together balanced investor and marketing plans
and monitoring the value of her programs. Sunil Sharma was brought on as Chief Financial
Officer in October and brings 20 years of experience in finance and
accounting with public and private companies, including producers
and explorers. Sunil has extensive experience in budgeting and all
aspects of financial reporting and compliance.
The Colombian team is extremely proficient in all technical and
supporting roles. The team has built strong stakeholder relations
for Santa Ana and tirelessly
worked to earn a social license to be able to conduct continuous
exploration and drilling for over 26 months. Examples of
Outcrop Silver's benefits to communities near the project include
primary and secondary education programs for adults, providing
material for micro-cap business startups, supplies for urban and
rural vegetable plots, increasing farm productivity, and working
with non-profits to provide numerous wheelchairs to the
disabled.
Outcrop Silver Aligns with the
Colombian Government:
After much initial reservation about a new administration by
junior resource companies, both Irene
Velez, Minister of Mines, and Colombian President
Gustavo Petro have stated in many
different forums that "Our government is not an anti-mining
government, but one that wants to ensure socially and
environmentally responsible mining." President Petro has stated
that his government "realizes the benefits exploration and mining
bring to opportunity-deprived communities," and would like
the mining sector "to focus on the exploration and development of
minerals critical to the energy transition."
Silver has the highest electrical conductivity of all metals. It
is essential in the production of solar panels and electric
vehicles. Silver supply will have to grow to meet demands and will
likely be in supply deficit in the medium term. Silver is a
critical energy transition metal that can be supplied by
Santa Ana.
Outcrop Silver is uniquely and positively aligned with the
objectives of the Colombian government concerning exploration and
mining. Santa Ana can become
a significant, low disturbance footprint, underground silver
producer in Colombia. Outcrop
Silver has established strong trust and support from communities
near and persons living on the project. Benefits to the community
from Outcrop will grow as the Santa
Ana project grows.
A Compliant Resource in Q1
2023:
Outcrop Silver has slightly delayed its resource report, but the
result will be a better report. We became aware in December that
for Micon International to include Santa
Ana's excellent preliminary recovery studies, they would
require some additional flotation and concentrate production tests.
The preliminary recovery results are 94% for silver and 96% for
gold. Micon would have significantly reduced resource report
recoveries without the additional tests. Outcrop Silver determined
that we could create better shareholder value from the resource
estimate if we waited until the additional metallurgical tests
could be conducted. Additional representative samples of
mineralized core have been sent to SGS Labs in Chile to conduct the tests.
Outcrop Silver also added a third core rig in December to make
the most use of these additional months. Currently two core rigs
are doing deeper shoot delineation to optimize projected volumes,
and the third core rig is focused on the most advanced greenfield
targets.
The map below illustrates "resource veins" (those to be used in
the Micon resource report) in comparison to "prospective veins" and
targets south of the Royal Santa Ana mines area. The resource veins
are only a small part of prospective veins and targets. Importantly
the prospective veins will show continuity with more detailed work,
and individual prospective vein segments likely represent broader
zones of parallel veins occurring within an area 1 to 3 kilometres
wide. These prospective veins which will not be included in
the initial resource report represent significant upside for
increasing the resource going forward.
Looking Forward to
2023
We are entering 2023 with optimism and a clear plan to generate
value for our shareholders. Less than 10% of the potential at
Santa Ana has been tested. We
should have another great year of drilling, with three core rigs
turning continually to drill high-grade mineralization of 13 shoots
to depth and laterally and drilling our best new greenfield
targets.
We will finish and report the SGS metallurgy work required by
Micon to use optimum metal recoveries and release a maiden
compliant resource in Q1 2023.
2023 will be another pivotal year as we further progress the
project. Currently three core rigs are operating at Santa Ana, and a total of 32,600 metres of
drilling is planned through December
2023. This level of drilling will significantly expand
existing potential resource areas, which will ultimately be
reflected in an upward-revised compliant resource report.
Simultaneously aggressive exploration work will continue
identifying new high-quality targets for drilling.
Sincerely
Joseph Hebert, President and
CEO
About Outcrop
Outcrop Silver & Gold is rapidly advancing the Santa Ana high-grade silver discovery with
ongoing expansion drilling and an initial resource to be released
in the coming months. Outcrop is also exploring four other gold and
silver projects with world-class discovery potential in
Colombia. These assets are being
advanced by a highly disciplined and seasoned professional team
with decades of experience in Colombia.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Joseph P Hebert
Chief Executive Officer
+1 775 340 0450
joseph.hebert@outcropsilverandgold.com
www.outcropsilverandgold.com
Kathy Li
Director of Investor Relations
+1 778 783 2818
li@outcropsilverandgold.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services
Provider (as such term is defined in the policies of the TSX
Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or
accuracy of this release. Certain information contained herein
constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities
legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be
identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as
"potential", "we believe", or variations of such words and phrases
or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur.
Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates
of management as of the date such statements are made and they are
subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors
that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance
or achievements of Outcrop to be materially different from those
expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or
forward-looking information, including the receipt of all necessary
regulatory approvals, capital expenditures and other costs,
financing and additional capital requirements, completion of due
diligence, general economic, market and business conditions, new
legislation, uncertainties resulting from potential delays or
changes in plans, political uncertainties, and the state of the
securities markets generally. Although management of Outcrop has
attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual
results to differ materially from those contained in
forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, other
factors may cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or
estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such
statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future
events could differ materially from those anticipated in such
statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on
forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Outcrop
will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking
information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as
required by applicable securities laws.
SOURCE Outcrop Silver & Gold Corporation