Tocvan Ventures (TOC.C) has announced it has started its initial 2,000 meter drill program on the North Block of the Gran Pilar gold-silver project in Mexico’s Sonora state.
This initial drill program is the first ever drill program in this underexplored area, and will drill-test a 3,200 meter by 1,500 meter target zone. 2,000 meters of drilling indeed sounds a bit light but that’s just the first step as the company is already contemplating an additional 3,000 meters of drilling to complete 3,000-5,000 meters of drilling before the traditional Christmas shutdown.
The north block drilling will follow up on the highest priority target areas where the company’s surface sampling program has yielded interesting results with for instance a 2 meter chip sample returning 5.6 g/t gold and 106 g/t silver while samples taken from the historical mine workings returned 3.2 g/t gold and 1225 g/t silver. Additionally, the field teams have discovered two new mineralized targets with historical underground workings.
1,300 meters of drilling across five holes has already been completed while road work preparations for trenching and drilling in the South Block is continuing, as preparation for the trenching and drilling plans over there.
Meanwhile, the company has also released the assay results of a sampling program that was conducted on the underexplored areas within the North Block, and those lab results contained elevated pathfinder elements (including anomalous arsenic, antimony and lead/zinc values) as well as interesting silver grades. Several samples exceeded grades of 1 ounce of silver per tonne of rock.
With gold trading north of $4000/oz and silver trading north of $55/oz, this could be an opportune time to publish a maiden resource estimate in 2026 should the exploration results justify doing that.
Disclosure: The author has a small long position in Tocvan Ventures. Tocvan is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.
