A total of 11 projects are currently in the exploration pipeline, many of which are located in close proximity to Yamana’s producing mines.
These properties are categorized into three separate tiers in terms of their importance and profitability. Those with well-defined gold mineral resources and opportunities to grow a potentially economic threshold in the next three years are considered tier 1 projects.
Tier 2 projects are ones that have achieved significant drill intercepts and whose geology along with other factors support rapid mineral resource growth, while tier 3 constitutes highly prospective projects with known mineralization defined with rock and soil geochemistry that warrant future drill testing.
Positive drill results were reported from the Lavra Velha (tier 1) and Borborema projects (tier 2) in Brazil and Monument Bay (tier 1) in Canada. Two early-stage tier 3 projects in Chile were recently added to the portfolio, which along with Borborema and Ivolandia (tier 2) show potential to advance to the next tier, Yamana said.
The main objective of the generative exploration program is to discover a standalone project with inferred mineral resources of at least 1.5 million ounces of gold-equivalent in three years. Results so far have strengthened the company’s conviction that this objective will be met, Yamana stated.
On a longer-term basis, Yamana aims to find a project that could support the development of a new cash flow generating mine with production of 150,000 ounces per year for at least eight years.
