Proactive Investor's  Instablog

Investigator Resources (ASX: IVR) shares have risen nearly 12% intra-day today on a day when the broader Australian market is a sea of red, the reason being the start of the next phase of drilling at its Paris silver prospect following up previous stellar high grade silver intersections.

Astute investors will realise these previous intersections, which include up to 2.25% silver, are extremely high grade and rarely found in Australia.

Adding extra spice to the exploration equation is the regional graphite potential with widespread hits recorded in historic drill data, including a substantial shallow intersection of 15 metres at 12% total graphitic carbon at the Barna Hill tenement.

A preliminary review of the graphite potential within Investigator's regional tenements has identified several areas with good potential where graphitic schists were intersected in past drilling.

High grade silver

Last month Investigator uncovered the first of the mineralised feeder structures at Paris which indicates a 3 to 7 metre wide vertical structure assaying over 400g/t silver.

Importantly, this discovery offers depth extensions for high grade silver mineralisation with increasing gold credits already evident in some of the intersections.

Recent assay highlights include 7 metres at 1,810g/t silver from 31 metres, 10 metres at 432g/t silver from 49 metres and 19 metres at 965g/t silver from 42 metres.

From the central feeder zone, notable intersections included 14 metres at greater than 427g/t silver from 97 metres.

The potential depth extensions to the Central Feeder were previously recognised with consistent intersections of up to 14 metres at 907g/t silver achieved by prior shallow drilling along 500 metres of strike tested.

Investigator has identified new feeder targets with an aggregate of another 2 kilometres of untested strike length which adds considerable exploration potential to Paris.

Further exploration upside was found from an initial petrological study which showed the silver is dominantly primary sulphide mineralisation, which is a positive for potential recoveries.

Drilling progress

One diamond drill rig has begun large diameter coring for geological and metallurgical assessment. A total of three large diameter holes will drill the North East manto zone, the northern end of the Central Feeder and the South East manto zone.

Another drill rig will also begin soon to start testing the Central Feeder zone and other feeder targets along with the first rig when it finishes the large diameter holes.

Eyre Peninsula - Emerging Mining Province

The Paris prospect lies adjacent to a new mining operation about 50 kilometres away on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.

The prospect is situated around 17 kilometres from the township of Kimba and the Eyre Highway, and about 200 kilometres from heavy engineering facilities in Whyalla and Port Augusta.

Interestingly, Paris is also located around 250 kilometres southwest of BHP Billiton's (ASX: BHP) Olympic Dam operation and about 350 kilometres south of OZ Minerals' (ASX: OZL) Prominent Hill mine.

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Lachlan Star's (ASX: LSA) progress at the CMD Gold Mine in Chile is continuing to attract investor interest, with votes of confidence coming from two investment companies.

Intact Investment Management has taken up an initial substantial shareholding of 9.66% in Lachlan Star, buying up 8.34 million shares over a period of about 4 months.

Meanwhile, existing substantial shareholder Sentry Investments has taken up a further 2.6 million shares in May, taking its total shareholding to 9.4 million, equivalent to a 10.91% interest.

Lachlan Star is continuing to outperform at the CMD Gold Mine, revealing earlier this month that the company had delivered its highest level of gold stacked for the mine since it took ownership of the operation.

For the month of April the unhedged gold producer stacked 6,000 ounces of gold. A further achievement was the increase in the grade of the stacked ore to 0.61 grams per tonne, the highest stacked grade since October last year.

This increase was achieved despite the company not mining in the Chisperos and Las Loas pits for most of the month.

Lachlan Star is working to optimise its mining costs by converting part of the CMD Mine operations to owner mining, which is expected to deliver cost savings of US$100 to $150 per gold ounce.

Mining contractors on site will be rationalised from three contractors down to one, delivering an immediate saving on mining unit rates.

Unhedged gold production rising

In March Lachlan Star had unhedged gold production of around 57,500 ounces per annum, however the company is looking to increase this to 75,000 ounces per annum in the next 12 months.

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Elementos (ASX: ELT) continues to make progress towards a target definition at its Tamaya Project in Chile after the second phase sampling identified further high grade copper.

The sampling and mapping program returned high grade copper of up to 4.75% while 60% of the 73 reconnaissance samples from multiple structures returned over 1% copper.

It also showed the potential for precious metals mineralisation with gold and silver anomalies of up to 2.21 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 8.4g/t silver.

Another 124 assay results are pending.

The ongoing mapping and sampling has now uncovered over 6 kilometres of mineralised structure.

Preliminary interpretation of the results include the presence of a number of smaller sub-parallel structures flanking the main Tamaya vein that are offset by a number of small cross-cutting structure.

Tamaya

Earlier this year Elementos secured an option to earn a 50% interest in the Tamaya Project, which is strategically located in a major copper-gold district hosting the Andacollo, El Espino, Tres Valles, and Punitaqui deposits.

Historical production at Tamaya is reported to be 2 million tonnes at 12% copper, with Elementos having identified the potential for large volumes of lower grade material.

Elementos' sampling and mapping program is concentrated on the main Tamaya structural trend that was the primary focus of historic mining activity.

Next Steps

The company continues to move closer towards the start of drilling at Tamaya, which is currently planned for the third quarter of this year subject to drill rig availability.

Mapping and geochemical sampling programs are continuing over the historic workings and surface exposures of the multiple structures, veins and systems which host copper mineralisation are continuing.

This will be followed by a ground-penetrating pole-dipole IP geophysical survey, planned to commence in late May

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