RE: Grades7 Jan 2026 17:00
Insite from 2012
St. Elias Mines (CVE:SLI) unveiled Friday drill results from its Tesoro gold project in southwestern Peru, intersecting gold at depths.
The company released the results of drill holes TE-36 to TE-43 as well as the results of trenching at Tesoro. So far, 43 diamond drill holes for a total of 12,740 metres have been completed.
Drilling has tested a variety of targets, including geophysical, down dip and along strike extensions of known gold-bearing quartz veins, and coincident geophysical and geological targets.
St. Elias said Friday that it has received inconclusive results from drill holes that specifically targeted the geophysical anomalies reported by Quantec, with Quantec data set to be independently examined by third party geophysicists.
Despite this, drill holes that tested geological targets did intersect gold at depths, the company added.
Indeed, holes with relatively deep intersections included TE 36, which hit 10.26 grams per tonne (g/t) gold over 1.5 metres, including 5.69 g/t over 1.57 metres at a depth of 133.5 metres; hole TE 38, which intersected 1.9 g/t gold over 1.21 metres at a depth of 103.5 metres; and hole TE 39, which hit 1.78 g/t gold over 0.5 metres at a depth of 120 metres.
The company also announced that it has completed a mechanized trenching program, in which a total of approximately 4,250 linear metres of trenching in 66 trenches were completed.
The majority of the trenching was completed in the area between Zona Central and Zona Sur at Tesoro, and included 557 samples from the wall rock and quartz veins.
Results from 417 wall rock samples revealed average grades of 0.032 g/t gold, with grades as high as 0.525 g/t gold. Results from 140 quartz vein or mineralized structure samples, showed an average grade of 1.35 g/t gold, with grades as high as 22.36 g/t gold.
The company has found five mineralized zones at the Tesoro project that host more than 50 quartz veins. Underground exploration and development work has been carried out on three of these veins (C1, C2 and A4 veins).
A total of 1,157 tonnes of bulk sample material averaging 0.93 ounce per ton gold has been extracted from underground exploration workings at several locations on the Tesoro property so far.
St. Elias highlighted the A4 vein, which yielded 643 tons averaging 0.77 ounce per ton gold; the C1 vein, which produced 451 tonnes averaging 0.99 ounce per ton gold; and the C2 vein, which produced 63 tonnes averaging 2.04 ounces per ton gold.
The company said that gold-bearing structures at the Tesoro property have not been fully explored to depth or along strike, adding that “there remains great potential for the discovery of additional gold mineralization”.
As previously announced at the end of May, St. Elias has suspended drilling at Tesoro and is “evaluating all project data and exploration options to advance the project”.
The Tesoro gold project is 100 per cent owned by St. Elias, wit