TORONTO, Sept. 08, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- YAMANA GOLD INC. (TSX:YRI; NYSE:AUY) (“Yamana” or “the Company”) today provided an update on exploration results for the Minera Florida, El Peñón, and Jacobina mines. Exploration results continue to support year-over-year growth, with promising new discoveries in the first half of 2020, indicating excellent potential for new mineral reserves and mineral resources at year end. The commitment to near-mine exploration and to improving efficiencies at our operations has resulted in significant new mineralized zones not currently in life of mine plans.

A separate exploration update on the Canadian Malartic mine, including drilling results and a mineral resource update for the East Gouldie zone, is planned for early in the fourth quarter. Please see the upcoming events section at the end of this press release for additional future catalysts.

Exploration Highlights, Minera Florida
•Drilling results in new production sectors of the mine, most notably Patagua and Don Leopoldo, continue to expand these sectors along strike and down dip, which remain open in both directions, underscoring the potential for expansion of the mineral resource base in both sectors.

•Exploratory results in newly explored areas of the mine provided significant discoveries, including in the La Flor Oeste and Bandolera sectors, demonstrating the presence of a wider and underexplored mineralization footprint at Minera Florida with the potential to produce significant new near-mine results and expand the mineral resource base as well as life of mine.

•At La Flor Oeste, drilling returned excellent results, encountering wide zones of higher than current average mineral reserve grades. Highlights include the following estimated true width intercepts: 4.74 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold, 15.4 g/t of silver, and 0.56% of zinc over 8.6 metres (drill hole ALH2993); 8.68 g/t of gold, 15.8 g/t of silver, and 0.49% of zinc over 5.4 metres (ALH2790). At Bandolera, located adjacent to the core mine area, high grade intercepts demonstrate good potential for additional mineral resources. Recent estimated true width intercepts include: 13.68 g/t of gold, 10.0 g/t of silver, and 6.90% of zinc over 2.0 metres (ALH2890); and 18.99 g/t of gold, 155.3 g/t of silver, and 0.28% of zinc over 1.5 metres (ALH2861).

Significance


Exploration in important new production sectors outside the core mine area, including Patagua and Don Leopoldo, support Yamana’s view of the Las Patagua corridor as a similar structural setting and style of mineralization to the core mine area. In addition, drill results in newly discovered sectors in underexplored areas of the property, such as La Flor Oeste and Bandolera, opened up higher-grade veins east and west of the Alhue block, further underscoring the potential to expand the mineral resource and life of mine. These exploration results support the Company’s internal assessment that mine life for Minera Florida will exceed the life of mine implied by mineral reserves alone. The strategic mine life for Minera Florida is estimated at 10 years.

Exploration Highlights, El Pe ñó n

•Exploration continues to demonstrate the extension potential of several sectors, including Pampa Campamento, Martillo Flat, and El Valle, while also generating discoveries of new veins and mineralized structures in the core mine.

•Drilling at Pampa Campamento successfully extended the southern mineralized zone on deeper levels, where drill hole UIP0009 returned 24.01 g/t of gold and 233.8 g/t of silver over 2.8 metres estimated true width, indicating the continuity of mineralization down dip.

•At El Valle, the delineation drilling program intercepted wider mineralized intervals and defined the mineral envelope continuity along strike with good expansion potential. Notable drill results include 13.17 g/t of gold and 959.4 g/t of silver over 3.8 metres estimated true width (UEV0013).

Exploration generated additional discoveries and new mineralized structures, with the definition of Quebrada Colorada Sur, a recently discovered vein system located in the south continuation of the historically productive Colorada structure.

Significance

Exploration results at El Peñón continue to highlight the expansion potential of historic sectors of the mine and support the Company’s internal assessment that mine life at El Peñón will exceed mine life supported by mineral reserves alone. The strategic mine life for El Peñón is estimated to be at least 10 years. El Peñón has a 20-year track record of mineral resource discovery and production depletion replacement. The latest discoveries at El Peñón, which are located in areas adjacent to infrastructure, include wide intercepts in deeper extensions of major veins as well as lateral extensions of key past-producing areas of the mine, underscoring the potential for increased productivity at lower development costs. In addition, while the El Peñón plant has the capacity to process up to 4,200 tonnes of ore per day (“tpd”), it is currently processing 3,300 tpd, meaning new discoveries can be brought forward thereby increasing annual production.

Exploration Highlights, Jacobina
•At the Jacobina Mine Complex, successful delineation drilling at Morro do Vento, continues to generate higher grade results in the Main Reef zone, including drill hole MVTEX00048, with multiple significant estimated true width intercepts including: 7.15 g/t of gold over 4.9 metres; 9.43 g/t of gold over 4.3 metres; and 5.80 g/t of gold over 3.8 metres, expanding the known reefs along strike and to depth, indicating excellent extension potential for additional mineral resources in these areas.

•At Canavieiras Central, the exploratory program has confirmed the presence of the mineralized reefs with high grade intercepts along strike toward Canavieiras Sul and indicated down plunge continuity for further mineral resource expansion potential in this direction. Highlights include drill hole CANEX82, with 4.35 g/t of gold over an estimated true width of 4.5 metres.

•Exploratory drilling at the Canavieiras Sul sector has confirmed the extension of the Maneira, LU, MU, and LVL reefs, expanding these zones along strike towards the south and further adding new areas for mineral resource expansion. Drilling highlights from this sector include: 7.29 g/t of gold over an estimated true width of 1.7 metres (CANEX70A) and 6.15 g/t of gold over an estimated true width of 1.9 metres (CANEX 88).

Significance

The exploration program at Jacobina continues to generate significant exploration results, with important new mineralized areas identified adjacent to the currently producing mines at Canavieiras Sul, Canavieiras Central, and Morro do Vento. The results support the Company’s internal assessment that mine life for Jacobina will exceed the 15-year life of mine implied by mineral reserves alone. The strategic mine life for Jacobina is estimated at 20 years. Jacobina also has a long track record of replacing depletion of mineral reserves from mining.

MINERA FLORIDA, EXPLORATION UPDATE

Minera Florida has been a continuous producer for over 35 years with the historic core mine reporting more than 2.5 million ounces of gold and 14 million ounces of silver production. Consolidation of the property position through the acquisition of the Agua Fria concessions in 2017 has generated new discoveries, including Patagua, Don Leopoldo, Fantasma, and PV Sur. These discoveries, aided by extensions of historically mined veins, have successfully maintained gold mineral reserves, replacing depletion and adding mineral resources from new sectors. They contributed to strong production in the first half of 2020 and will provide the foundation for further production increases and mine life extensions.

This year, the exploration program has generated discoveries in new areas of the property, both east and west of the core mine, including La Flor Oeste and Bandolera, indicating a larger mineralized footprint for future growth. The La Flor area in particular is returning exceptionally wide vein intercepts for the mine, providing better potential for mineral resource growth and operational efficiency. In addition, the delineation drilling program in the last quarter of 2019 and first half of 2020 focused on the Patagua and Don Leopoldo sectors, intersecting northwesterly-oriented vein systems that continue to demonstrate excellent potential, with strong mineralization along the intersection area of the two veins and new extensions along strike and down dip.

At Patagua, delineation drilling results have expanded the known mineralized zones by 100 metres down dip, adding new mineralization in areas previously considered sub-economic, and through infill drilling along the intersection with the Don Leopoldo sector. Significant results from recent activity include the following estimated true width intercepts: 7.52 g/t of gold, 3.0 g/t of silver, and 0.49% of zinc over 2.5 metres (ALH2921); 11.55 g/t of gold, 5.3 g/t of silver, and 0.43% of zinc over 1.4 metres (ALH 3010); 4.19 g/t of gold, 11.3 g/t of silver, and 0.10% of zinc over 4.1 metres (ALH3059). See Figure 2 and Table 1 for additional results.

Successful delineation drilling on Don Leopoldo continues to generate excellent results, defining a higher grade zone, with the following estimated true width intercepts: 5.86 g/t of gold, 27.9 g/t of silver, and 0.47% of zinc over 2.2 metres (ALH3028); 4.72 g/t of gold, 12.1 g/t of silver, and 0.07% of zinc over 1.5 metres (ALH3017). The Don Leopoldo zone remains open to the east and down plunge with the deepest hole (ALH2928) reporting 17.86 g/t of gold, 8.5 g/t of silver and 3.44% zinc over a 1.1 metres estimated true width. See Figure 3 and Table 1 for additional results.

Historically, exploration at Minera Florida has been concentrated in the central Alhue structural block, where most of the underground development and past drilling has occurred. In recent years, exploration has expanded beyond the east and west limits of the Alhue block (see Figure 1). Exploratory drill testing in these new areas has successfully identified the continuity of mineralized veins beyond these perceived limits, both east and west of the central block. This work has generated significant new discoveries and demonstrates a much wider mineralization footprint on the large land package open to future exploration.

To the west, exploration drilling has successfully defined the La Flor Oeste sector, encountering wide intercepts of higher-than-current mine reserves grades along this north-south oriented structure. Drilling to date has defined the La Flor Oeste vein system over a 300-metre strike length and over 100 metres of down-dip extent. The vein system and related structures remain open in all directions. Significant results from La Flor Oeste include the following estimated true width intercepts: 4.74 g/t of gold, 15.4 g/t of silver, and 0.56% of zinc over 8.6 metres (ALH2993); 8.68 g/t of gold, 15.8 g/t of silver, and 0.49% of zinc over 5.4 metres (ALH 2790); 6.76 g/t of gold, 22.2 g/t of silver, and 2.19% of zinc over 4.8 metres (ALH3009). Although historically the exploration focus at Minera Florida has been on northwest- and northeast-striking vein structures in the core mine area, recent exploratory results, such as the La Flor Oeste discovery, suggest that north-south oriented vein structures also represent viable exploration targets. Please see Figures 1 and 4 and Table 1 for additional results.

To the east of the central Alhue structural block, drilling has identified the northwest-striking Bandolera vein system adjacent to current infrastructure. This new discovery has been defined over a 150-metre strike length and over a 300-metre vertical interval and remains open in all directions. Significant drilling results from Bandolera include the following estimated true width intercepts: 18.99 g/t of gold, 155.3 g/t of silver, and 0.28% of zinc over 1.5 metres (ALH 2861); 13.68 g/t of gold, 10.0 g/t of silver, and 6.90% of zinc over 2.0 metres (ALH 2890); 7.73 g/t of gold, 8.9 g/t of silver, and 0.08% of zinc over 1.0 metre (ALH 3002). Please see Figure 5 and Table 1 for additional results.

Exploration in important new production sectors outside the core mine area, including Patagua and Don Leopoldo, support Yamana’s view of the Las Patagua corridor as a similar structural setting and style of mineralization to the core mine area. In addition, drill results in newly discovered sectors in underexplored areas of the property, such as La Flor Oeste and Bandolera, opened up higher-grade veins east and west of the Alhue block, further underscoring the potential to expand the mineral resource and life of mine. Overall, these exploration results support the Company’s internal assessment that mine life for Minera Florida will exceed the life of mine implied by mineral reserves alone. The Company’s estimated strategic mine life for Minera Florida is 10 years.

Figure 1: Minera Florida Location Map Showing Main Target Areas Discussed in Text, Geological Features, Principle Vein Systems, And Underground Workings.
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