Silvercorp Metals Inc. (TSX: SVM) (NYSE American: SVM) is pleased to report thick and high-grade intercepts from its 2021 exploration program at the LMW mine. Extensive exploration drilling and tunneling are ongoing at the LMW mine, and all other mines in the Ying Mining District, Henan Province, China.

From May 1 to September 30, 2021, 23,908 metres from a total of 166 diamond drill holes, including 152 underground holes and 14 surface holes, were completed at the LMW mine. Assay results for 102 holes have been received, with 70 holes intercepting mineralization. Currently there are 12 rigs drilling at the LMW mine.

The strategy of the drilling program is threefold: 1) drill above or beneath the stopes that were previously mined but stopped due to poor understanding of the geology, such as veins LM7 and LM7W where much thicker pods have been discovered by infill drilling; 2) drill for high-grade silver-lead-zinc veins at the northwest and east sides of the resource area with previous limited drilling without follow up such as W1, W2, W6, and LM41E series veins where high grade intercepts were discovered and can quickly be mined; and 3) drill low angle gold veins such as LM50, copper-gold-silver veins such as LM26, and gold-silver-copper veins such as LM22.

Drilling Intersected High-Grade Silver-Lead-Zinc Veins at the Northwest and East Sides of the Resource Area

At the northwest side of the resource area, drilling intersected high-grade silver-lead-zinc veins W1, W2, W6, and W6E1 with true widths up to 4.67 m, at an elevation above 850 m. The drilling program discovered new splay and parallel veins, including W1E, W2E, W2W, W6W, and W18E. Vein W1 has been defined approximately 200 m along strike and 100 m down-dip, and is still open laterally along strike and at depth.

At the east side of the resource area, between the LMW mine and the LME mine, drilling intersected high-grade silver-lead-zinc vein LM41E, at an elevation above 760 m. Drilling also intersected additional splay and parallel silver-lead-zinc veins LM41E1 and LM41E1Wa, which are also high-grade vein structures with true widths up to 7.03 m.

Drill Above or Beneath the Stopes That Were Previously Mined

Most holes in this period targeted blocks of known silver-lead-zinc veins in the production areas that were previously missed due to limited drilling or tunneling, changes in the strikes and dips, and/or pinch-swelling of the pay-zones in the veins. The high-grade intercepts are mainly associated with the northeast-striking LM7 series and LM12 series, and the northwest-striking LM8 series and LM19 series. Drilling discovered additional splay and parallel vein structures LM12_2a and T1, the latter may be a southwest extension of the major vein structure T1 at the TLP mine to the northeast of the LMW mine.

Highlights of the high-grade silver-lead-zinc mineralization at the LMW mine:

• Hole ZKX05X023 intersected an 8.87 m interval (7.60 m true width) of vein LM7W grading 705 grams per tonne silver, 1.51% lead, 0.08% zinc 0.06 g/t gold, and 0.05% copper from 24.73 m depth, at an elevation of 790 m;
• Hole ZKX1137 intersected a 5.16 m interval (4.80 m true width) of vein LM41E1 grading 984 g/t Ag, 1.19% Pb, 0.29% Zn, 0.08 g/t Au, and 1.15% Cu from 46.4 m depth, at an elevation of 793 m;
• Hole ZKX0451 intersected a 3.11 m interval (1.72 m true width) of vein W1 grading 1,468 g/t Ag, 4.90% Pb, 0.97% Zn, 0.03 g/t Au, and 0.35% Cu from 137.88 m depth, at an elevation of 981 m;
• Hole ZKX05X037 intersected a 5.40 m interval (5.06 m true width) of vein LM8W grading 703 g/t Ag, 1.52% Pb, 0.14% Zn, 0.08 g/t Au, and 0.42% Cu from 24.97 m depth, at an elevation of 795 m;
• Hole ZKX0789 intersected a 2.96 m interval (2.21 m true width) of vein LM7W grading 1,646 g/t Ag, 2.42% Pb, 0.27% Zn, 0.45 g/t Au, and 0.17% Cu from 15.96 m depth, at an elevation of 786 m;
• Drift Tunnel PD918-W1-918-4SYM exposed mineralization 15 m long and 0.85 m wide (true width), grading 1,561 g/t Ag, 4.31% Pb, 0.62% Zn, 0.02 g/t Au, and 0.45% Cu of vein W1 at an elevation of 918 m (Table 3); and
• Drift Tunnel PD918-W1-918-4NYM exposed mineralization 30 m long and 0.61 m wide (true width), grading 1,222 g/t Ag, 3.74% Pb, 0.98% Zn, 0.15 g/t Au, and 0.34% Cu of vein W1 at an elevation of 918 m (Table 3).

Drill Low Angle Gold or Copper-Gold-Silver Veins

The drilling continued intersecting and extending the low angle gold vein LM50. An additional 17 holes in this period targeted LM50 and defined a block 800 m E-W by 500 m N-S, with hole density at the central 300 m by 300 m portion being approximately 25 m by 25 m. Another 15 holes targeted the low angle gold vein structure LM26. The assay results of 13 holes were returned with 10 holes intersecting gold mineralization.

Highlights of the intercepts from the low angle gold veins at the LMW mine:

• Hole ZKX0796 intersected a 3.47 m interval (2.74 m true width) of vein LM50 grading 11.82 g/t Au, 27 g/t Ag, 0.29% Pb, 0.22% Zn, and 0.01% Cu from 37.23 m depth, at an elevation of 786 m;
• Hole ZKX0788 intersected a 2.47 m interval (1.99 m true width) of vein LM50 grading 1.26 g/t Au, 1,193 g/t Ag, 0.40% Pb, 0.04% Zn, and 0.16% Cu from 14.46 m depth, at an elevation of 789 m;
• Hole ZKX0787 intersected a 1.51 m interval (1.27 m true width) of vein LM26 grading 5.86 g/t Au, 2 g/t Ag, 0.01% Pb, 0.02% Zn, and 0.01% Cu from 80.04 m depth, at an elevation of 749 m;
• Hole ZKX0153 intersected a 2.12 m interval (1.23 m true width) of vein LM26 grading 4.62 g/t Au, 19 g/t Ag, and 0.75% Cu from 63.11 m depth, at an elevation of 646 m;
• Hole ZKX0172 intersected a 1.19 m interval (1.01 m true width) of vein LM26 grading 2.81 g/t Au, 132 g/t Ag, and 4.05% Cu from 60.95 m depth, at an elevation of 643 m;
• Drift Tunnel PD924-LM22-834-5YMSS exposed mineralization 20 m long and 0.38 m thick (true thickness), grading 97 g/t Ag, 26.89 g/t Au and 12.93% Cu of vein LM22 at an elevation of 834 m (Table 3); and
• Drift Tunnel PD924-LM22-834-5YMSD exposed mineralization 10 m long and 0.39 m thick (true thickness), grading 54 g/t Ag, 38.95 g/t Au and 5.63% Cu of vein LM22 at an elevation of 834 m (Table 3).

Table 1: Selected intercepts from the drilling program at the LMW mine

Tunneling Programs at the LMW Mine              

A total of 1,753 m of exploration tunnels have been developed at the LMW mine during this period. The exploration tunneling, comprised of drifting, cross-cutting and raising, was driven along and across major mineralized vein structures to upgrade the drill-defined mineral resources, and to test for new parallel and splay structures (Table 2).

At the elevation of 834 m, three decline tunnels exposed low angle gold vein LM22 with ore lengths of 20 m, 18 m and 10 m, and gold grades of 26.89 g/t, 20.80 g/t and 38.95 g/t, respectively. A four-hole drilling program has been initiated to test the continuity of LM22 at the 834 m elevation.

Table 2: Summary of the tunneling program at the LMW mine

Table 3: Selected mineralized zones exposed by drift tunneling at the LMW mine

Quality Control

Drill cores are NQ size. Drill core samples, limited by apparent mineralization contacts or shear/alteration contacts, were split into halves by saw cutting. The half cores are stored in the Company’s core shacks for future reference and checks, and the other half core samples are shipped in securely sealed bags to the Chengde Huakan 514 Geology and Minerals Test and Research Institute in Chengde, Hebei Province, China, 226 km northeast of Beijing, the Zhengzhou Nonferrous Exploration Institute Lab in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, and SGS in Tianjin, China. All three labs are ISO9000 certified analytical labs. For analysis, the sample is dried and crushed to minus 1mm and then split into a 200-300 g subsample which is further pulverized to minus 200 mesh. Two subsamples are prepared from the pulverized sample. One is digested with aqua regia for gold analysis with atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), and the other is digested with two-acids for analysis of silver, lead, zinc and copper with AAS.

Channel samples are collected along sample lines perpendicular to the mineralized vein structure in exploration tunnels. Spacing between sampling lines is typically 5 m along strike. Both the mineralized vein and the altered wall rocks are cut by continuous chisel chipping. Sample length ranges from 0.2 m to more than 1 m, depending on the width of the mineralized vein and the mineralization type. Channel samples are prepared and assayed with AAS at Silvercorp’s mine laboratory (Ying Lab) located at the mill complex in Luoning County, Henan Province, China. The Ying lab is officially accredited by the Quality and Technology Monitoring Bureau of Henan Province and is qualified to provide analytical services. The channel samples are dried, crushed and pulverized. A 200 g sample of minus 160 mesh is prepared for assay. A duplicate sample of minus 1mm is made and kept in the laboratory archives. Gold is analysed by fire assay with AAS finish, while silver, lead, zinc and copper are assayed by two-acid digestion with AAS finish.

A routine quality assurance/quality control procedure is adopted to monitor the analytical quality at each lab. Certified reference materials (CRMs), pulp duplicates and blanks are inserted into each batch of lab samples. QA/QC data at the lab are attached to the assay certificates for each batch of samples.

The Company maintains its own comprehensive QA/QC program to ensure best practices in sample preparation and analysis of the exploration samples. Project geologists regularly insert CRM, field duplicates and blanks to each batch of 30 core samples to monitor the sample preparation and analysis procedures at the labs. The analytical quality of the labs is further evaluated with external checks by sending approximately 3-5% of the pulp samples to higher level labs to check for lab bias.  Data from both the Company’s and the labs’ QA/QC programs are reviewed on a timely basis by project geologists.

Guoliang Ma, P. Geo., Manager of Exploration and Resource of the Company, is the Qualified Person for Silvercorp under NI 43-101 and has reviewed and given consent to the technical information contained in this news release.

About Silvercorp

Silvercorp is a profitable Canadian mining company producing silver, lead and zinc metals in concentrates from mines in China. The Company’s goal is to continuously create healthy returns to shareholders through efficient management, organic growth and the acquisition of profitable projects. Silvercorp balances profitability, social and environmental relationships, employees’ wellbeing, and sustainable development.