Silverco Mining (TSX-V:SICO) has commenced surface and underground exploration drills at its La Negra Project in Querétaro, Mexico, as part of a planned 15,000m program targeting ‘high-grade’ silver zones.
The company reports two rigs are now active at the 100% owned project, with surface drilling initially focused on the Valenciana target located less than 1km northwest of existing underground workings.
Underground drilling will test multiple target areas proximal to existing mine development, including Maravillas, Valeria, and Blanca deposits.
“Commencing our first exploration program at La Negra marks an exciting milestone for Silverco. With two rigs now active as part of a planned 15,000m 2026 program, we are focused on testing high-grade silver zones with potential to feed into the mine plan early in the mine life and additional priority targets,” CEO Mark Ayranto says.
The project database contains more than 2,850 drill holes totalling over 230,000m from 50 years of exploration. The majority of drilling over the last 20 years has been near existing development, with many zones seeing limited or no drilling in over a decade.
Silverco says historical drilling returned wide mineralised intervals and high grades across multiple deposits and orebodies, with mineralisation remaining open vertically and laterally.
La Negra is a silver-rich polymetallic skarn deposit where fluids associated with granitic intrusions replaced surrounding Cretaceous carbonate rocks, producing clusters of sulphide bodies along intrusive contacts and favourable structures.
The drill mobilisation follows several months of technical groundwork completed in the first half of 2026. Silverco has consolidated and validated the project’s drillhole database, reviewed historical geological mapping, and completed new underground mapping across existing mine workings.
Silverco has reinterpreted the deposit’s resource wireframes through three-dimensional geological modelling, which the company says will support an updated mineral resource estimate expected in the coming months.
The company also plans to fly a property-wide light detection and ranging survey aimed at identifying potential surface expressions of chimney-style mineralisation, including historical workings, subsidence features, and structural lineaments.
Ayranto says the company expects initial results from the program, an updated mineral resource estimate and a life-of-mine plan for La Negra through the remainder of the second half of 2026. This is in addition to expected results from the ongoing 30,000m drill program and planned restart of Cusi in late December quarter 2026.
Silverco owns the producing La Negra Mine in Querétaro and the past-producing Cusi Silver Complex in Chihuahua.
Write to France Pinzon at Mining.com.au
Images: Silverco Mining
