TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX- and NYSE-listed Fortuna Silver Mines on Wednesday reported a 42% rise in contained silver ounces and a 29% rise in the number of gold ounces contained in the measured and indicated categories at its San Jose mine, in Mexico.

The South America-focused miner explained that the latest resource update included results from the Trinidad North discovery, after it completed forty-one step-out and twelve infill drill holes in the area.

The new estimate, effective June 30, estimated the mine to have 5.8-million tonnes in the compliant measured and indicated categories, containing about 42.3-million ounces of silver and 334 000 oz of gold.

The inferred resource was 7.1-million tonnes, containing 58.9-million ounces of silver and 401 000 oz of gold, reflecting increases of 67% in contained silver ounces and 47% in contained gold ounces when compared with last year’s July 4 estimate.

Taking into account output-related depletion of 5.1-million ounces of silver equivalent and a decrease in existing resources, containing 2.8-million ounces, the contained silver equivalent ounces in the measured and indicated classifications increased by 18.2-million ounces to 62.4-million ounces, while the contained ounces in the inferred classification increased by 32.6-million to 82.9-million ounces of silver equivalent. This was as a result of changing the reporting cutoff grade from 70 g/t to 100 g/t of silver equivalent to better align the resource reporting cutoff grade with the mine operating costs.

"Brownfield exploration drilling has been very successful in the past year at extending the Trinidad North mineralisation a further 200 m to the north. High-grade silver/gold mineralisation at Trinidad North remains open to the north and at depth. Underground access and new drilling chambers are currently in preparation to allow for exploration of an additional 250 m extension of the mineralised system with drilling projected to start from the new drill chambers in September,” Fortuna VP for exploration Dr Thomas Vehrs commented.