Southern Silver Exploration Corp.- A Precious and Base Metal Exploration Company

Southern Silver Exploration Corp.

Overview

Southern Silver Exploration Corp. (TSXV:SSV,FSE:SEG) is a publicly traded Canadian-based precious/base metal exploration company focused on acquisition, exploration and responsible development of potential major mining ventures in Mexico, New Mexico and Arizona. In Mexico, the recently completed option agreement with Freeport-McMoRan Exploration on the Cerro Las Minitas project provides the stable funding, up to $25 million over ten years, required to advance the project toward additional discovery and development. The new copper-gold discovery at South Skarn continues to demonstrate the deeper, porphyry potential of the project. In January 2013, Desert Star Resources entered into an option agreement to earn up to 70% interest in the Oro project by making cash payments to the company, and incurring exploration expenditures totaling $6 million over a period of 66 months. The recent drilling by Southern Silver has identified a widespread zone of porphyry/skarn system and near surface bulk-tonnage gold potential. At the Dragoon project located 90 kilometers southwest of Tucson, Arizona, strongly anomalous copper molybdenum mineralization in drill core and on surface reflect large scale mineralizing system.

Investment Highlights

  • Option agreement with Freeport-McMoRan Exploration Corporation at Cerro Las Minitas Project, located along the Faja de Plata, or belt of silver, in Durango, Mexico.
    • To date, Southern Silver has identified two high-grade silver-polymetallic deposits (the Blind zone and El Sol zone). Freeport is currently drilling 3000 to 5000 meters to test targets identified in recent surface exploration.
  • Option agreement with Desert Star Resources at the Oro gold and copper project in southwestern New Mexico.
    • Desert Star intends to conduct a systematic exploration program on the property in 2013.

Key Properties

Cerro Las Minitas – Durango, Mexico

In October 2012, Freeport-McMoran Exploration Corporation optioned the Cerro Las Minitas Project from Southern Silver. Freeport can earn up to 70% interest in the Project with staged expenditures of $25.0 million over ten years.

  • Option to Earn 51% – $5.0 million exploration expenditures
    • Yr 1:     $1.5 million (firm, committed) + $100,000 property payment
    • Yr 2:     $1.3 million + $200,000 property payment
    • Yr 3:     $1.6 million + $300,000 property payment
  • Option to Earn additional 19% (70% total)
    • Completion of feasibility and minimum $19.0 million in additional expenditures
    • Pay Southern Silver an additional $1 million before the tenth anniversary of the effective date
  • FMEC will maintain the residual property payments
 Southern_Silver_Cerro_Las_Minitas

The Cerro Las Minitas project is located about 70 kilometres to the northeast of the city of Durango in Durango State, Mexico, and is accessed easily by road. The property comprises 17 concessions, totalling 10,980 hectares, and lies within heart of the Faja de Plata (Belt of Silver) of north central Mexico. The belt is one of the most significant silver producing regions in the world, with current reserves/resources and historic production in excess of 3 billion ounces of silver.

Southern Silver has explored the property since late 2010 and to date has completed airborne and ground geophysics over the project and 15,540 metres of core drilling in 62 drill holes.

Near surface mineralization occurs as massive-sulphide pipes, veins and replacement deposits distributed in the skarn-altered margins of a large intrusive body.

Initial testing of the central intrusion in the area of historic mining by Southern Silver identified widespread zones of argillically altered intrusive and thinner intervals of elevated gold and copper mineralization. The company anticipates testing targets on the margins and beneath this broad alteration halo which is interpreted as the upper parts of a large and widespread polymetallic porphyry system.

2013 Exploration

Freeport-McMoRan Exploration Corporation plans a property-wide exploration program comprising:

  • Geochemical survey over entire property (25km)
  • Geophysical survey over 6 previously identified anomalies
  • Deep-seeing IP/resistivity geophysical and soil geochemical survey over Cerro Las Minitas mine area
  • Diamond drilling program to be designed based on the results of the exploration program, as well as follow-up of historical drill intercepts, commencing March 2013

Oro Project, New Mexico

Option agreement with Desert Star Resources (TSX.V: DSR) signed in January 2013 to earn a 70% interest in the project.

  • Option to Earn initial undivided 51% interest
    • $150,000 cash payment
    • Incur exploration expenditures totaling $3 million and issuing one million common shares of the company to Southern Silver over a 42 month period.
  • Option to Earn initial additional 19% undivided interest (70% total)
    • Incur a further 3 million in exploration expenditures and complete a preliminary economic assessment on or before the date that is 66 months after exchange approval.

Southern-Silver-Oro

The 6.9 sq. km Oro Project comprises eight patented mining claims and 89 BLM mineral claims which cover the majority of the historic Eureka Mining District in Grant County, New Mexico and is located approximately 40 km SW of the Silver City porphyry copper district.

The Oro claims overlie a large Larimide-age, intrusive-related gold, silver and base metal center located in the Little Hatchet Mountains. The company has identified multiple prospective drill targets throughout a 2 kilometre long mineralized corridor largely untested by modern exploration.

Initial exploration on the project included geological mapping, surface sampling and a five-hole, 1645 metre diamond drill program, conducted over a nine month period in 2009-10. This work identified the exploration potential for three deposit types at Oro, recommendations for IP geophysics to assist drill targeting and a minimum of six core holes to test these additional targets.

Southern Silver’s work on the project to date has identified strong surface alteration and distinct geochemical zoning in rock and bio-geochemical samples throughout the property. Anomalous gold, base-metals and arsenic occur in association with intervals, often tens of metres thick, of silicification, pyritic sulphides, and variable skarn alteration and hornfels in two of the five Phase I core holes which tested the property.

For 2013, Desert Star Resources intends to conduct a systematic exploration program; including a detailed deep penetrating geophysical program, surface mapping, sampling, trenching and diamond drilling to test both the porphyry potential on the property as well as the gold potential at Stock Pond.

Management

Lawrence Page – Principal and Founder
As the principal and founder of the Manex Resource Group, Lawrence Page brings over 45 years of experience in corporate and securities law, and has been a director and officer of public companies which have discovered and brought mines such as Eskay Creek, Mascot Gold, and Pensaquito in to production.

R. Dale Janowsky – Director
Mr. Janowsky is a recent retiree after 44 years in the practice of corporate and commercial law. He has extensive experience in corporate reorganizations, mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures.

D. Roger Scammell
Having been in the mining and exploration industry in North America, Mexico, and Guatemala for over 40 years, Mr. Scammell is a specialist with epithermal gold/silver, polymetallic base metal, and nickel and coal deposits. He has held management positions with companies such as Teck Corporation and Scorpio Mining, primarily responsible for the exploration, development, and initial production of projects such as the Nuestra Senora polymetallic silver mine in Sinaloa, Mexico.

Terrence E. Eyton
Mr. Eyton is a Chartered Accountant and currently Chief Financial Officer of Peninsula Merchant Syndications Corp. His professional career encompasses depth in financial, regulatory and compliance matters across many sectors including mining.

Nazlin Rahemtulla
Currently the Human Resources Manager at Gowlings’ Vancouver office, Ms. Rahemtulla has over 14 years of experience in the financial industry, previously holding management positions with Weiler Smith Bowers Consulting Structural Engineers, The MacLean Group, and RBC Financial Group.

Scott B. Hean
Mr. Hean is currently Chief Financial Officer of Quaterra Resources Inc., and previously held senior management and executive positions with Bank of Montreal and JP Morgan, primarily responsible for financing companies in the natural resources sectors. He is also a director of Sabina Silver Corporation and a number of TSX – Venture companies.

Southern Silver Exploration is a Manex Resource Group Company that benefits from a shared expertise in corporate finance, technical and geological services, investor relations, and public company administration.