Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 13, 2026) - Silverco Mining Ltd. (TSXV: SICO) ("Silverco" or the "Company") is pleased to report that surface and underground exploration drills have been mobilized at its 100% owned La Negra Project ("La Negra") in Querétaro, Mexico.
Mark Ayranto, CEO of Silverco, commented:
"Commencing our first exploration program at La Negra marks an exciting milestone for Silverco. With two rigs now active as part of a planned 15,000 metre 2026 program, we are focused on testing high-grade silver zones with potential to feed into the mine plan early in the mine life and additional priority targets. Through the remainder of H2 2026 we expect initial results from this program, an updated mineral resource estimate and a life-of-mine plan for La Negra. These catalysts are in addition to expected results from the ongoing 30,000 metre drill program and the planned restart of Cusi in late Q4 2026, making for a catalyst rich H2 2026."
The primary focus of the 2026 program will be targeting areas with the potential for high grade silver within proximity of the existing La Negra underground mine. The project database contains more than 2,850 drill holes totalling over 230,000 metres, completed over the property's more than 50-year history. The majority of drilling over the last 20 years has been near existing development. This drilling has returned numerous significant historical results, including wide intervals and high grades, across a multitude of deposits and orebodies that the Company believes carry high potential and warrant substantial follow-up. Many of these zones have seen limited or no drilling in over a decade, and mineralization remains open vertically and laterally. Selected historical results are presented in Tables 1 and 2.
Surface drilling will initially focus on the Valenciana target, located less than one kilometre northwest of existing underground workings, while underground drilling will test multiple target areas proximal to existing mine development, including Maravillas, Valeria, and Blanca. Collectively, these targets are prioritized based on the strength of historical drill results, proximity to existing infrastructure, and the potential to add high-grade silver material to future mine plans.
Work To Date
Drill mobilization follows several months of systematic technical groundwork completed in H1 2026. The Company has consolidated and validated the project's drillhole database, reviewed historical geological mapping from previous operators, and completed new underground mapping across existing mine workings. Standardized core logging protocols and QA/QC procedures have been established for the 2026 program, and drill core will be submitted for multi-element analysis, providing the geochemical dataset needed to vector toward silver-rich portions of the zoned skarn system. In parallel, the Company has reinterpreted the deposit's resource wireframes through rigorous three-dimensional geological modelling, which now form the foundation for an updated mineral resource estimate ("MRE") expected to be completed in the coming months.