The Silver Mines Ltd (ASX: SVL) share price is lifting in early trade today after the silver miner announced it submitted a mining lease application for its Bowdens Silver Project. The company says the Bowdens Project is the largest undeveloped silver deposit in Australia and one of the largest on Earth.
At the time of writing, the Silver Mines share price is up 0.89, trading at 22.7 cents.
Let's look closer at this morning's news from Silver Mines.
Mining lease application
Today's announcement is the latest from the company regarding the Bowdens Project, as it looks to be getting closer to breaking ground.
Silver Mines submitted what so far is a successful environmental impact statement in May 2020 and is finalising its response to submissions to the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.
More about Bowdens Silver Project
The Bowdens Silver Project, located in central New South Wales, is owned completely by Silver Mines.
The company states Bowdens has a mine life of 16.5 years. Over that time, it is expected to produce approximately 66 million ounces of silver, 130,000 tonnes of zinc and 95,000 tonnes of lead.
The proposed development of the Bowdens Silver Project includes an open-cut mine and a new processing plant with a conventional milling circuit and differential flotation.
Smelting of the two concentrates Silver Mines intends to produce at Bowden will be conducted off-site.
The most recent assay results from the project are impressive. They include:
- 34.6 metres at 471g/t silver equivalent (413g/t silver, 1.14% lead, 0.39% zinc) from 96 metres which includes:
- 7 metres at 1090g/t silver equivalent (966g/t silver, 2.86% lead, 0.56% zinc) from 97 metres; and
- 6.1 metres at 874g/t silver equivalent (789g/t silver, 1.67% lead, 0.59% zinc) from 122 metres.
Silver Mines share price snapshot
The Silver Mines share price is having a poor year so far. Despite a few days of decent share price increases, the general trend has been downward. Currently, the company's shares are down 13.46% year to date. Although, over the last 12 months, its share price has increased by 221.43%.
Silver Mines has a market capitalisation of around $266 million, with approximately 1.1 billion shares outstanding.
