Southern Silver Exploration Corp. reports today that it has executed an amending agreement with the Optionor of the Cerro Las Minitas property in Durango Mexico to reduce the option payment due on May 18, 2013 from $1 million to $250,000 and to extend the balance of the purchase price of $1.75 million to be paid periodically with the last payment due in March 2015.
Freeport-McMoRan Exploration Corporation (‘FMEC”) has been funding and directing Southern Silver’s subsidiary, Minera Plata del Sur, S.A. de C.V. (“MPS”) to explore the property pursuant to an earn-in agreement since October 2012 and has advanced the $250,000 option payment together with a previous payment of $750,000 due November 18, 2012, together with applicable IVA taxes with such amounts being credited toward potential expenditures of $25 million required to earn an indirect 70% interest in the property.
Since execution of the earn-in agreement, FMEC has directed MPS to conduct soil and vegetation geochemistry and geophysical surveys over the 15,125 hectare property and to explore the property with diamond drilling utilizing two core rigs in order to advance the project quickly through this initial discovery and evaluation stage.
Approximately 1300 metres of the planned +3500 metres drill program has been completed to date. Logging and sampling of the core continues. Assays are pending and will be reported upon the completion of the drill program.
Current plans are to test deeper offsets of known mineralized zones at the South Skarn, Blind Zone and Santo Nino targets and several geophysical and geochemical targets identified in recent surface exploration by FMEC. The current drill program is targeting a deep seated porphyry/skarn mineral system similar to the historic San Martin deposit (60Mt of 118g/t silver, 0.9% copper and 3.9% zinc) located about 100 kilometres to the south of the Cerro Las Minitas project. See news release NR-07-13, April 2, 2013 for further details of exploration to date and the proposed drilling program.
Source: http://www.southernsilverexploration.com/