Tier One Silver (TSX-V:TSLV) is a gold and silver explorer with a Peru focus that was spun out of Auryn Resources in 2020. It is looking for silver, gold and base metals, with its flagship project at Curibaya. It has just restarted exploration work at Curibaya and at its Hurricane project.
Tier One has a highly experienced management team with a track record of monetising success, including an 18x return from Keegan Resources between 2008-11 and a 5x return on Cayden Resources between 2013-14 (the latter sold to Agnico Eagle for $205m). In the case of Cayden Resources, the team was able to monetise 100 drill holes for $205m in a bear market for small miners. That takes some doing.
Curibaya project advancing to new drill phase
Tier One Silver is advancing Curibaya toward its second phase of drilling, which is expected to consist of approximately 2,000 – 4,000 metres, with pre-drilling surface work focusing on the Cambaya target. Highlights from the first drill program at the project included 1.5 m of 1,129 g/t silver (Ag), 1.04 g/t gold (Au) in a larger interval of 7 m of 272 g/t Ag, 0.33 g/t Au.
At the Hurricane project, Tier One Silver will be conducting geochemical and geophysical surveys at the Magdalena target area, where five mineralized vein corridors were identified with recent channel sampling results including 6 m of 239 g/t Ag, 1.21% Cu, 0.34% Pb, 0.15% Zn and 1 m of 605 g/t Ag, 0.26% Cu, 5.79% Pb, 0.21% Zn.
In addition, at the copper-nickel-platinum-palladium-silver prospects at Hurricane, which includes Ñañohuayco, San Cipriano and Morro Culispata, where social access was recently obtained, there are plans to initiate surface work to define potential drill targets in preparation for permitting.
“This second phase of exploration is exciting as it gives us the opportunity to expand on our initial findings and further define a mineralised system,” explained Peter Dembicki, CEO of Tier One Silver. “Curibaya is located on one of the most prolific mining trends in the world and Hurricane demonstrates exceptional grade and has been vastly underexplored. Collectively, these projects offer grade, scale and a pipeline for potential world-class discoveries.”
The company is focusing on some areas that have not previously been explored in Peru. In our own meeting with Tier One Silver, they stressed that this was a market where the majors would be slow in coming back.
Tier One is exploring in terrain which has required some additional infrastructure investment – e.g. connecting roads with drill pads. The expectation is that solid results out of this current drill program will “reset the valuation of the company,” Dembicki told The Armchair Trader. “This story has got more exciting in recent months. We have 6km of corridors to test, so we have our hands full. We are 45km from the pan-American highway, in desert terrain, with no archaeology. This is a good set up for a major.”
Dembicki is also very positive on Hurricane, even though Curibaya is the current jewel in the crown for Tier One Silver. This project covers approximately 30,000 hectares and is located about 66 kilometres north of the city of Cusco within an underexplored region in south-eastern Peru. Numerous high-grade silver occurrences have been identified at the project through first pass reconnaissance rock sampling by a previous operator.
“The data [at Hurricane] told us that it would save us two years of exploration,” Dembicki said. “We only got access here in late fall.” The site has some artisanal mine shafts and is more residential in characters, so access has been restricted until recently.
Tier One Silver has signed a two-year community agreement that provides surface access to the Magdalena silver prospect and half of the Pampayeoc silver prospect and has commenced surface work at these two high-priority targets. A two-year social agreement has also been signed with the Hualla community, which will allow for exploration of the Ñañohuayco, San Cipriano and Morro Culispata copper-nickel-platinum-palladium-silver prospects. This agreement allows for surface work and will allow for drilling once a drill permit has been obtained from the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines.
