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Endeavour Silver extends high grade zone at El Cubo, more expansion ahead

Published: 23:26 15 Apr 2014 AEST

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Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE:EXK)(TSE:EDR) said Tuesday that exploration drilling at its El Cubo mine in Mexico has extended the recently discovered high grade, silver-gold mineralized zone in the Asuncion area of the Villalpando vein system to over 800 metres long. 

The company told investors that the area is still open at depth and to the southeast for expansion. 

Of the highlights, the precious metals miner hit 194 grams per tonne (g/t) silver and 2.89 g/t gold over 13.6 metres, including 10,843 g/t silver and 99.2 g/t gold over 0.15 metres. 

According to Endeavour's statement, at a 100 g/t per metre cutoff, the mineralized zone now measures more than 800 metres long by up to 400 metres deep, and up to 14 metres thick. 

"With our refined understanding of the local geological controls on mineralization at El Cubo, we were able to go from target definition to a new discovery to resource and reserve definition at V-Asuncion in the space of one year," said VP of exploration for Endeavour, Luis Castro in a release this morning.

"We estimated a small resource for this area at the end of 2013 and we anticipate it to be significantly larger for our year-end reserve/resource estimate and mine plan. 

"In fact, typical of the Endeavour business model, the mine operations team gained access to and commenced production from the V-Asuncion area last year."

Indeed, the path to resource and reserve definition was certainly fast, with the company having identified the V-Asuncion area in 2012, moving on to gain access to map and sample the underground mine workings last year. Endeavour discovered that the area hosted not one, but two vein splays.             

This year, the company said its focus in the V-Asuncion area will be step-out drilling with two surface rigs to determine the size of the resource, underground mine development to outline new reserves and production to expand the mine output from 1,200 tonnes per day to up to 1,550 tpd by year-end. 

Endeavour, which operates three silver mines in Mexico, said last week that first quarter production is already well ahead of its production plan for the year, despite not planning any growth in output in 2014. Its El Cubo mine in Guanajuato is the company's biggest opportunity to expand output this year. It said last Wednesday that the mine is now back on plan to fill the plant capacity by year-end to 1,550 tonnes per day and start building an ore stockpile.

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