Prismo Metals,Targeting High-Grade Silver-Gold, Has Begun Drilling at Palos Verdes
Nothing like ultra high-grade veins to produce eye-popping results. With kg+ silver results pulled from previous campaigns, the potential - and expectations - for this drill campaign are high.
tl;dr:
Prismo Metals have officially begun drilling their Palos Verdes project immediately adjacent to Vizsla Silver’s Panuco project. With 3000 meters budgeted, this drill campaign will test the property at depth and along strike in ways it has never been before. Success with this campaign will very materially grow any future resource in this very high-grade silver-gold district. With Vizsla as a formal partner offering technical expertise and guidance - including allowing Prismo to drill from its land to target at depth properly - this is a pretty exciting drill campaign which I also believe has a pretty high likelihood of success.
Part 1: The Interview
Part 2: The Companion Article
Overview
Metals as of this morning’s announcement (Sept. 24) has officially begun drilling again on their Palos Verdes project neighbouring Vizsla Silver’s Panuco project in Mexico.
How many $12 million market companies can you name with imminent drill campaigns on multiple targets? Not many spring to mind for me. The point is often made (fairly or unfairly) that - especially at the small cap and micro cap level - junior exploration pubcos just don’t get credit for their non-flagship assets. I think Prismo might be the exception that defines the rule in this regard. This is because while their Hot Breccia project is set to be the main course later this fall and into the winter, there’s a pretty decent appetiser that is now officially being drilled out at Palos Verdes.
The reason I am optimistic that Palos Verdes can provide value for Prismo in advance of their high-stakes porphyry exploration at Hot Breccia is that its ultra high-grade vein system produces the sort of eye-popping grades that the market always loves to see. Either immediately bordering, or neighbouring closely Vizsla Silver (with its 300m+ I+I AgEq ounces discovered so far), Palos Verdes has produced numbers like 4,311 gpt AgEq over 1.35m or 3,205 AgEq over 1.15m. Even diluting those to a mineable width of, say, 3m - these are clearly very impressive numbers and all within 200m of surface.
And with only 33 holes and ~6000 meters drilled into it so far, you can’t help but wonder what other bonanza-grade holes are waiting to be drilled.
So the potential is obviously there for serious grade. The limiting factor thus far for Prismo hasn’t been the below-ground potential, but above-ground property markers - namely that their property was too narrow for them to be able to step back enough to properly target deeper vein structures. To do so would mean having to drill from Vizsla’s property. Which is exactly what they’re doing with this campaign, thanks to their partnership with Vizsla.
This emerging partnership is no doubt a boon to Prismo. Vizsla are 9.9% owners, have a seat on Prismo’s board and technical committee, and have a ROFR on any potential future transaction Prismo might look to sign for Palos Verdes. In terms of discussing this individual drill campaign, I imagine that having the technical expertise of Vizsla in the room helps Prismo’s own efforts immensely.
And it makes sense that this partnership has developed. Palos Verdes would mean more to Vizsla than any other company out there. And while you might counter that Palos Verdes’ limited size and tight location next to Vizsla means it might not attract interest from anyone other than Vizsla (in the same way a couple jigsaw pieces are most valuable to the person building the puzzle) I would think Prismo is in a happy position to conduct any potential M&A.
There will always be interest in high-grade discoveries, but not every project with high grade has such a natural suitor for it. Granted, you might not get the bidding war that projects capable of standing district-scale on their own can command, but derisking and delineating a high-grade vein system across hundreds of meters or more in strike? Well, that’s always going to hold value. And if you’re a Prismo shareholder, you no doubt have visions of a healthy transaction here helping to fuel other dreams while eliminating any need for dilution for quite a while.
So to me, Palos Verdes ends up being this very interesting and potentially very lucrative little project for Prismo. A high-grade, high-potential asset with a clear path to a takeout, which would in turn convert Palos Verdes into equity for Prismo to explore their Hot Breccia target with (assuming success there of course).
The Drill Campaign
I will let my interview above and summary below do most of the talking in this regard, but this drill campaign is anticipated for a reason. The below points correspond with the technical committee’s exploration recommendations and match the 3 red ovoids.
They finally get to drill at depth thanks to that Vizsla partnership. There’s lots of reason to believe there’s further discoveries lurking below thanks to Vizsla’s own discoveries. Success here very materially grows the size of the prize.
They will be chasing the vein across the fault structure to the east. Again - if this is successful, it again fundamentally alters just how much potential Palos Verdes holds.
Assuming they get this far (and don’t end up chasing new high-grade zones elsewhere) they will look to test the eastern extremes of the system to understand just how much strike length is in play.
Ultimately, this campaign has what you want to see - multiple legitimate kicks at the can to make a new discovery. Given the grades, the exploration analogues, and the ongoing partnership with Vizsla, I like Prismo’s odds to come good here - both immediately with this drill campaign and in the longer term with M&A.
This is a drill campaign to keep an eye on.
Part 3: The Written Summary
Note that timestamps are links to the time in question.
01:00 Overview of News Release
3000 meter drill campaign announced – now drilling
Drilling from neighbouring Vizsla property
Prep work has been completed – the permit they had meant a lot of work had to be done by hand, so it took time to get going, but the drill is turning.
02:30 Are there perceived delays to spud?
Fair – people probably did expect drilling already.
There was a bit of a learning curve to working with Vizsla.
For example – needed different level of insurance for Vizsla than normal
Construction took time as well. Tough terrain
04:00 Why drill deeper here vs elsewhere?
Most of the historical 6000 meters has come on the left/west side of the fault.
Defined a shallow chute down to about 100 meters
Hoping to intersect the same vein system as it continues down dip - Chase it to depth
3 person technical committee built the 3 goal strategy
06:45 Why is Vizsla’s Napoleon Vein an important analogue for your exploration?
Vizsla’s first major discovery – now 1.5km+ in strike
It looks just like Palos Verdes (Prismo’s vein)
Was very small at surface
Chasing across the fault to the east – the veins thin out singivicantly, become discontinuous
Identical to how Napoleon looked like at surface. Hope there for a repeat.
10:40 Run through the three main goals of this program
Trace down dip extension
Seek continuation of the vein on the NE extension across the fault
Test the extreme NE extension to demonstrate strike length
Started out as a conversation of how to explore deeper when limited by property edge.
Thought to ask Vizsla about the current plan as getting deeper was an obvious goal
Build a program based around geology, not concession boundaries.
Led to current relationship – Vizsla as 9.9% owners, seat on board, ROFR on any deal
Technical committee consisting of Dr. Peter McGaw, Jesus Villador (VPX at Vizsla), and Craig Gibson
Palos Verdes already has 750m of strike length
Proving depth to the west of the fault and then chasing and discovering it to the east of the fault is a natural progression.
Prismo could end up helping Vizsla make a third big discovery in the district.
14:30 Discussion of Graphics from News Release
Cross-section of the vein they are drilling out and going down dip on.
Two different vein branches
Blue drill is their current drill
Two greens are suggested/potential next drills to get even further down
Their vein has similar silver:gold ratios as Vizsla’s
17:45 How concrete is your drill program currently?
Geology will dictate where we allocated our meterage
If they drill into great results they will focus there. Market would likely demand it.
But they are going to wait and see results before committing
But moving east to the other side of the fault to test their thesis is important regardless.
20:45 Timing for drill results
Roughly 10 days per hole
Short turnaround time – send core to Mexican labs just 4 hours away by road – 2 weeks sometimes
Leaving it open their plans to release (could be one hole or multiple)
Mid-October is their guess
23:15 Hot Breccia Update
AI Analysis continues
Model constantly being upgraded
Plan to drill near historical holes to help understand them (they have logging data, but not the core itself), so drilling one hole will unlock the data from two.
Evidence continues to build that there is a large tonnage deposit down there.
Conclusion
This is a neat one. I like that it has multiple kicks at the can to produce value in short order. The confidence of exploration at Palos Verdes - though with a smaller ultimte prize - serves to temper the riskier discovery drilling at Hot Breccia which nevertheless has a major potential prize awaiting it. That optinality derisks this company for me a bit, and the future of Palos Verdes looks like it could mesh quite well with the future of a hungry Hot Breccia porphyry needing meters - and money - to be delineated. At current valuation levels, I think Prismo offers great exposure to two separate potential discoveries across silver/gold and copper. We’re in the corner of the market where there’s always a lot of risk, but to me there’s two pretty healthy rewards here to justify that risk. And with initial results only a few weeks away at this point, we don’t have to wait for long to see what’s coming.
Until next time.
Thanks for reading.
-Matthew from JRI.
