BKB to start underground drilling at Texas silver project
Our 2025 Small Cap Pick of the Year Black Bear Minerals (ASX: BKB | OTCQX: BKBMF) is about to start underground drilling at its silver project in Texas, USA.
BKB’s project produced ~35M ounces of silver at 521g/t between 1883 and 1942.
The most recent mining run was in 2012-13.
The project comes with ~$150M of existing processing infrastructure and a 17.5Moz @ 289g/t silver foreign (non-JORC) resource that BKB is working to convert to JORC.
We are Invested in BKB to see it get the project back online.
Today BKB confirmed Works are now nearing completion to open up underground access via the existing mine decline.
(source)
US mine safety regulator MSHA has been on site assessing final requirements.
AND the existing declines are said to be in “good condition” from the works undertaken.
Underground access will let BKB confirm the condition of what sits underground, feeding directly into the mine restart studies already underway.
This also opens up another positive, BKB can now drill from underground, much closer to the mineralisation, meaning shorter holes that save on both time and cost:
(source)
Drill planning is underway on this, with initial holes to target around the previous workings, which are difficult to test from surface and hold ~1km of strike outside the foreign resource.
This is what that foreign resource BKB will be aiming to turn into JORC status is:
(source)
The underground works will also enable BKB to progress its rehabilitation activities and continue on with the mine planning and restart studies that are underway.
We covered BKB's most recent Shafter results that increased the grades from re-assays of old core with grades up to ~2,990g/t silver) here.
What else is BKB up to?
In early August, BKB released the results of a scoping study for its Nevada gold project (Independence) based on just a small portion of the resource there.
Over here in Nevada BKB has a ~2.2M ounce gold JORC resource next door to $98BN Barrick and $158BN Newmont's Nevada Gold Mines (NGM) Phoenix Complex.
(source)
The scoping study was based off just ~420K ounces gold equivalent portion of its total 2.2M ounce resource showing:
- A post-tax NPV of ~A$511M - over 5.5x BKB's current market cap of $90M,
- A ~64% Internal Rate of Return, and;
- A ~1.4 year payback on initial capital of ~A$119M.
You can read our deep dive from earlier this week here: BKB: Surrounded by the biggest gold mining complex in the world - and this just happened
What's next for BKB?
🔄 Gold project in Nevada
Next we want to see BKB deliver:
- ✅ COMPLETED: Mining study phases on a heap-leach development
- ✅ COMPLETED: Scoping study
- 🔲 DUE NEXT: Metallurgical testwork across all epithermal oxidation states
- 🔲 DUE AFTER: Revised Scoping Study on the full 1.2M ounce shallow resource
- 🔲 DUE LATER: Pre-Feasibility Study
Eventually when drilling is back on the cards we want to see BKB test for the following:
- 🔄 UNDERWAY: Planning for follow-up drilling north of skarn (the 580m gap to WI-002)
- 🔲 DUE NEXT: Drill testing the Rebel Trend (1km of untested strike)
- 🔲 DUE NEXT: Deeper drilling at South Hill (untested stacked lodes)
🔄 Silver project in Texas, USA
Over the next 6 months the main things we want to see are the following:
- 🔄 Rapid restart study (CAPEX estimate)
- 🔄 Drill program - 11 diamond holes
- 🔄 Multi-element gold/zinc/lead assays
- 🔲 Maiden JORC resource
- 🔲 Scoping Study starts
- 🔲 Restart Final Investment Decision (FID)
