Most of the juniors that we feature or talk about on this site are usually the grass roots or so called green fields juniors. Those are juniors that are doing some exploration such as geochem work, sampling and maybe some drilling. The junior we are going to be looking at today is not only an explorer but has just recently joined the ranks of being an active miner in the Santa Eulalia district, Chihuahua State, Mexico.
The Santa Eulalia is a world class polymetallic mining district. Millions of ounces of silver along with tons of zinc and lead have been mined in the Santa Eulalia mining district in the past century. It's one of the richest mining districts in Mexico and is comprised of what is called Carbonate Replacement Deposit (CRD) type. CRD deposits are characterized by structural and lithologic controls to the location and geometry of sulfide mineralization. This CRD is noteably one of the largest in the world. Production and reserves for the district have been estimated to be about 50 million metric tons with grades of 125-350 g/t Ag, 2-8% Pb and 3-12% Zn. The entire Santa Eulalia district is owned by only 3 different mining companies. One of the companies is a Mexican company Groupo Mexico which is owned by Southern Copper. Another part of this area is owned by MAG Silver and the third owner of the district is Cyprium Mining and it is in this district that the Potosi mine is situated.
Cyprium has three projects or objectives of business on the go at this time. To start with, the company's main focus of business is to seek out and find older mines that have potential for redevelopement. Cyprium has accomplished this by securing a 53% interest in a joint venture to operate the Potosi Silver mine. The Joint Venture also own the rights to the La Chinche exploration property. The La Chinche concession is located to the south and adjacent to the concessions that cover the areas with past production of the Potosi Property. (See above map)
The second project is to aquire mineral claims that can be explored, drilled and proven up. The company has accomplished this by securing the rights explore the Las Cristinas project which is a 684 hectare gold-silver-copper-zinc play also located in the state of Chihuahua. This project also has an older mine that was shut down in the 1970's. The mine has 2 shafts, 2 levels and headframe.
The third project at this time is the Aldama processing operation where Cyprium has aquired exclusive use of a 100 metric tons per day Flotation Plant outside Chihuahua, Mexico for a period of five years. By being able to have exclusive use of this facilty allows the company to save and conserve cash by not having to invest in this type of infastructure right away and allows the company to allocate funds for further exploration and drilling to expand it's mineral reserves or re-invest those funds into other cash generating projects. Having accomplished these three feats in short order, the main focus and task at hand is the historic Potosi silver mine which is the company's flagship project.
The Potosi mine is the company's flagship project. The mine is an older mine that dates back to the early 1900's and has been family owned since the 1950's. The mine operated until 1991 when it closed because of low metal prices, high costs and labor issues. Over the last decade or so small amounts of ore were taken from Potosi and then in 2015 Cyprium became involved. Through a series of financial transactions and commitments and also involving Cyprium stock, Cyprium owns 53% interest in the mine, the family through it's privately owned company owns 45% and a corporate director owns the rest. The company has a very aggressive time schedule to get this mine back in full production as you can see in the table below.
The mine itself is quite large. It has 22 levels and is a kilometer deep. There is also a total of 6 shafts in the mine and has 300 KM of old tunnels and workings. To date, Cyprium has focused its exploration efforts in the mine on the upper Tunel body on levels 2 and 4 and also on an oxide zinc body which is located on level 14. In July the company put out a news release stating that production had started as workers set out to extract mineralized material left in stopes on levels 1 and 2 of the mine by past mining activities. The company also worked on the No. 3 shaft because this allows workers to gain access to all the levels from 0 to 4. Initial mine production of up to 20 tons per day is expected until the company receives it's blasting permit. After that production will increase.
The mine has two ore body deposits. The Tunel and the Santo Domingo. The Tunel body is the area that the the company is focusing it's effort on at present however there has been ongoing sampling and assays from the Santo Domingo body. In a recent news release from June 2016 shows nine samples were taken from level 14 of the Santo Domingo body and averaged 37% Zn over an average sample width of 1.53m.
Once mining gets ramped up to full production, further exploration and work is expected to take place in the Santo Domingo body also known as the Main Silicate Body. The evaluation and preparations for exploiting the Santo Domingo body as well as the preparation of a 43-101 resource calculation by the end of the year will now assume top priority. The company believes that the larger Santo Domingo body located at level 9, 10 and 11 of the mine has good exploitation potential. Exploration work since 2014 includes more than 600 sample results all showing a large mineralized ore body. There is a large tonnage of high grade rock that is visible yet to be mined in this area.
The Las Cristinas Project is claim block area that is about 7 KM long by about 1-2 KM wide. This is a copper-silver project that the company plans to expand on. During 2014-2015 there was some exploration and sampling being taken at the site along with some drilling. The claim area has an older mine on the site that has 2 different levels and 2 shafts along with a head frame. Drilling did cut across intersects of high grade massive sulphide veins which included 1.30 m interval at 9.5% Cu and 35 g/t Ag and 0.50 m interval at 12.1% Cu and 1 g/t Ag.
The Aldama Project is a flotation plant operation that the company became involved in. The agreement in place allows the company first right of operation for the milling of the company's ore. The plant is capable of milling 100 tons per day. Cyprium invested $200,000 in 2015 and plans on a further investment of another $200,000 in 2016 to help improve the process along with doubling the capacity of this plant up to 200 tons per day. From here finished ore is transported to Port of Manzanillo where it is shipped overseas.
Cyprium personel are present at this plant also and have full control of the milling and processing of the company's ore. Company personel oversee all the aspects of the milling like quality control and quality assurance and milling to specific grades as required.
Latest Video Of Alian Lambert CEO of Cyprium Mining
Overall Summary Of Cyprium Mining
Today there are thousands of junior mining companies to invest in. With the recent rebound in precious metals and gold in particular, investor taste for these kinds of investments have turned positive. Prudent and contrairian investors know all to well that these kind of investments run in cycles. Knowing these cycles there is no doubt that the world has seen the bottom of the bear cycle and the time to look at investing in these types of investments is now. Investors who understand this will be active in evaluating companies and projects that have a lot of positives and this is a catagory that Cyprium Mining is in.
Here is some good & positive reasons to have Cyprium Mining on your investing radar.
Mexico! Mining friendly Mexico
Great exposure to silver
Excellent high grade zinc potential
Producing mine equals cash generator
Cash generator equals increase in shareholder value
Excellent land package surrounded by major players
Under valued compared to peers in Mexico
Only 68 million shares O/S
Experienced management. Skilled work force
To find out more about and these projects, Click Here to visit their website. There you will find all an exstensive amount of information along with contact information.
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Mexico! Mining friendly Mexico