Mark Gordon - Senior Analyst.
West Coast Silver's focus is its high-grade Elizabeth Hill Silver Project, located within the West Pilbara of Western Australia. The project is located adjacent to infrastructure, within the company having recently released a high-grade initial Mineral Resource Estimate. West Coast is now looking to expand on this and also undertake a scoping study on a relatively small, but high-grade open-pit operation that has the potential for a rapid, low-capex start-up, which could generate significant cash flow in the short- to medium-term.
West Coast Silver has recently released an initial Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) of 141,000 t @ 617 g/t Ag, for 2.8 Moz contained silver at its 70%-owned Elizabeth Hill Silver Project. The grade of 617 g/t (~20 ozpt) is exceptional, with the higher-grade mineralisation largely as native silver, and close to an order of magnitude greater than most silver resources globally.
The Project includes the Elizabeth Hill mine, which produced ¬1.2 Moz of Ag at a grade of 2,194 g/t (¬70.5 ozpt) in 1999/2000. Production from the underground mine ceased due to the prevailing silver price of ¬US$5.00/oz, as compared to over US$70/oz today.
This should be considered as a “starter” resource, with expansion drilling and other work underway - the drilling by WCE has intersected some grades greater than those from previous mining, and interpretations highlight the potential for significant resource growth, through expansions of the existing MRE, and new discoveries.
Work throughout 2026 will be targeted towards a Scoping Study for a potential small scale, high-margin open-pit mining operation (or possibly a starter pit ahead of incorporation of new silver ounces from outside of the currently reported resources) at Elizabeth Hill – such an operation should be able to produce significant cash flow in the short to medium term.
With current precious metals prices, such projects in the gold space are attracting the interest of investors and have resulted in attractive returns.
