Royal Road eyes underground mine as Colombia drilling resumes

Royal Road Minerals (TSXV: RYR) said recent drilling at its Guintar-Aleman-Margaritas gold-silver-copper project in Colombia suggests the deposit could support a bulk-tonnage underground mine.

Hole GUI-DD-028 cut 76 metres of 2.1 grams gold, 0.4% copper and 7.9 grams silver from 45 metres depth, Royal Road said Wednesday in a statement. The hole is one of four that the company is drilling this year as part of a 2,500-metre exploration campaign, its first since 2022.

Along with Morocco and Saudi Arabia, Colombia is one of three countries where Royal Road is advancing development projects. It acquired Guintar and Margaritas from AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU) in 2019 as part of a country-wide license package.

“These drill results, combined with the reprocessing of historical data using mining-constrained cut-offs and a reinterpretation of the geology, have significantly improved our understanding of the scale and geometry of mineralization at Guintar,” CEO Tim Coughlin said in the statement.

“We are now defining a porphyry-skarn system extending from surface over an area exceeding 2 sq. km and to depths of more than 500 metres, with later steeply dipping, high-grade quartz-carbonate veins enhancing the overall grade profile,” he added.

“This combination of broad, continuous mineralization and higher-grade overprinting structures is consistent with a bulk-tonnage underground mining scenario of meaningful scale.”

Antioquia region

Located about 50 km east of Medellin, Guintar hosts gold-copper-silver porphyry-skarn and sheeted-vein gold systems with a combined surface footprint of more than 8 sq. km. The surrounding Antioquia region hosts several producing gold operations and advanced-stage exploration projects.

Other results released Wednesday included hole GUI-DD-031, which hit skarn-style mineralization and cut 15 metres at 1 gram gold, 0.6% copper and 11.3 grams silver from 130 metres depth. Mineralization, which was continuous from surface to end-of-hole over 193.7 metres, remains open at depth.

Royal Road began drilling at Guintar in 2021 before halting work to focus on advancing regulatory and permitting processes. Drilling resumed two months ago.

AngloGold and Royal Road had previously drilled 43 diamond holes totalling 13,700 metres, with more than half of holes ending in grade, the company says.

Royal Road says it’s the largest title holder in Colombia, with over 1,800 sq. km of combined mining concessions and applications.

Shares of Royal Road fell 2.7% Wednesday morning in Toronto as wider markets dropped on higher-than-expected US inflation, cutting the company’s market value to about C$53 million ($39 million).