Diablillos near-surface mineralisation: project economics and drilling notes for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
New drilling at AbraSilver Resource’s Diablillos project in Salta province, Argentina, has intersected shallow gold–silver mineralisation at the Cerro Viejo target, including 27 m grading 4.6 g/t Ag and 0.58 g/t Au from 23 m in hole DDH 26-037 and 32 m at 2.8 g/t Ag and 0.29 g/t Au from 9 m in DDH 26-047. The company has now completed about 12,000 m in 54 Phase VI diamond holes, with two rigs turning and a third due this month, contributing to over 170,000 m drilled on the property. Diablillos carries a DFS-based after-tax NPV of US$4.15 billion, a 42% IRR and a 1.7-year payback, with additional upside from the Condoryacu acquisition, where initial drilling hit 72 m at 117 g/t Ag and 18.7 g/t Au.
Technical Brief
- Diablillos lies ~160 km south of Salta city, in a high-altitude Andean precious-metals belt.
- AbraSilver has accumulated over 170,000 m of drilling on the Diablillos property to date.
- Phase VI began in January and has already completed 54 diamond holes totalling ~12,000 m.
- Two diamond rigs are currently operating on site, with a third rig to be mobilised this month.
- Current drilling is not limited to Cerro Viejo; step-outs continue along Oculto West, Oculto East and the JAC–Oculto trend.
- Condoryacu, recently acquired nearby, delivered an initial intercept of 72 m at high-grade Au–Ag mineralisation.
- Management commentary emphasises continuity of near-surface gold at Cerro Viejo, implying potential for low-strip open-pit inventory.
- For project pipeline benchmarking and regional analogues, Diablillos now ranks among Argentina’s largest undeveloped precious-metal projects.
Our Take
With 54 diamond drill holes planned in Phase VI at Diablillos and concurrent high-grade results at the Condoryacu property, AbraSilver Resource is effectively running parallel value-creation tracks in Salta and elsewhere in Latin America, which can diversify project risk beyond a single silver-gold deposit.
The presence of Northcliff’s Sisson molybdenum-tungsten project data alongside Diablillos highlights that AbraSilver’s copper-gold-silver focus contrasts with Northcliff’s molybdenum-tungsten profile, signalling very different exposure to price cycles within the same Projects-tagged coverage set.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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