Silver may have slid back from its $48 highs in April, but trading today in excess of $37 today, it is still up more than 20 percent in 2011 alone and up approximately 300% since December 2008 lows when the markets were finding a recession bottom.
According to the Silver Institute, "Silver mine production rose by 2.5% to 735.9 Moz (million ounces) in 2010 aided by new projects in Mexico and Argentina." Mexico outpaced all other countries by producing 128.6 million ounces of the lesser-valued cousin of gold. With the upscale in production, Mexico passed Peru and moved into the number one position amongst its counterparts as the largest gold producing country in the world in 2010.
This is good news for companies focused on mineral explorations in Mexico, especially those with property located near industry giants such as Fresnillo plc., Pan American Silver or Penoles-Newmont (to name a few). With regards to primary silver mines in 2010, Fresnillo ranked second in the world with its Fresnillo Project; producing 35.91 million ounces, second only to BHP Billiton’s Cannington, Australia Mine with 38.60 million ounces produced.
Vancouver-based Colibri Resources Corp. (TSX-Venture:CBI) has set up shop in one of the gold/silver/lead/zinc hubs of Mexico and surrounds itself by the aforementioned industry leaders in the State of Sonora, Mexico. The Company is completely focused on exploration of historical mining districts in Mexico through its right to acquire up to 100% interest in three different projects in Sonora.
All of their projects encompass a former producing mine camp in excess of 3,000 hectares where widely-distributed mineralization outcrops at the surface. While historical mining was done by following surface exposures of high grade vein systems underground, modern geological and geophysical methods were never performed to truly quantify the amount of minerals contained in the soil; which Colibri intends to do.
Today, Colibri disclosed another batch of results from its 2,000-metre drilling program at its Ramard silver project. This property, a location of numerous historical artisanal silver workings, consists of over 4,000 hectares of mineral concessions north of Hermosilla, Sonora and is owned by Colibri’s Mexican subsidiary, Minera Halcones. Assays were released from holes 11-16 of 28 drill holes.
Several intercepts were substantial including hole BRAPD11 intersecting 52 metres averaging 11.6 parts per billion gold, 10.9 g/t silver, 0.13% lead, 0.16% zinc including two metres of 100 ppb gold, 117.3 g/t silver, 0.8% lead, 1.5% zinc. Five metres grading of 65 ppb gold, 76 g/t silver 3.56% lead, 2.76% zinc were cut by BRAPD12 as well as BRAPD14 intercepting 25 metres at 21 ppb gold, 31.6 g/t silver, 0.26% copper and 1.07% zinc.
Colibri has been on a rock-solid climb since last August when shares could be snagged in the area of four cents, but slipped downward today to trade at 27.5 cents, down 14% so far on 81,600 shares trading hands.
