Meridian Mining SE announced multiple intersections of strong Cu-Au-Ag mineralization from the ongoing drill programs at both the advanced Cabacal Cu-Au-Ag project ("Cabacal") and the Santa Helena Cu-Au-Ag & Zn project ("Santa Helena"). The infill drilling at Cabacal includes results from the mine, and results from the Cabacal Northwest Extension ("CNWE"). These results are part of the Cabacal's Preliminary Feasibility Study's ("PFS") drill program, now completed.
Exploration and infill drilling continues at Santa Helena and Cabacal respectively and further assays are pending. Additional time was needed to complete the PFS's resource and technical programs, required to further improve the quality of the datasets, resulting in pushing the reporting to early First Quarter 2025. The Santa Helena mine is located 10km to the southeast of Cabacal and is the first satellite deposit being developed as part of a hub and spoke strategy by the Company.
The results continue to consolidate the resource potential of the western sector of the deposit. The intersection confirms a robust footprint of high-grade mineralization up dip from the western limits of historical underground mine development. CD-497 is located 170m east-southeast of CD-500, and down-dip from CD-416, which returned 16.6m @ 2.1g/t AuEq from 41.4m, including 6.8m @ 3.3g/t AuEq3.
Further drill results continue to be delivered from the Company's programs at the advanced Cabacal mine, including holes from the Northwest Extension ("CNWE") and the mine area's Southern Copper Zone ("SCZ"). 7.1m @ 2.1g-t AuEq (0.8g/t Au, 0.9% Cu & 1.7g/t Ag) from 52.9m; and 9.8m @ 1.4g/t AuEq (0".3g/t Au, 0.,8% Cu & 7.4g/t Ag) from 63.5m. Drill results have been provided to the Company's resource consultant to review, and work is underway to update geological surfaces based on the drill results to date.
Results demonstrate good spans of copper-gold and gold-only mineralization both in and along strike from the historical mine development. The Cabacal PFS program has now moved into the detailed engineering phase, as the PFS drilling and metallurgical programs are largely completed. Drilling will continue to target internal infill, and open areas of mineralization, which will be used in the subsequent technical and economic studies.
In order to maximise the quality of the dataset for the PFS, the in-fill resource drill program, metallurgical and geotechnical programs have taken longer to complete than initially forecast. U unexpected difficulties in drilling out the northwestern most limb of the PEA resource, due to the topography, drill azimuths and angles, impacted the scheduled meterage advancement in the later part of Second Quarter. The Preliminary Economic Assessment technical report (the "PEA Technical Report") dated March 30, 2023, entitled: "Cabacal Gold-Copper Project NI 43-101 Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment, Mato Grosso, Brazil" outlines a base case after-tax NPV5 of USD 573 million and 58.4% IRR from a pre-production capital cost of USD 180 million, leading to capital repayment in 10.6 months (assuming metals price scenario of USD 1,650 per ounces of gold, USD 3.59 per ounces of gold, USD 3.59 per ounces.