On the fifth week of March, on exploration Colibri Resource announced a new drilling campaign in Sonora, Mag Silver continuation of deep exploration at Juanicipio, Southern Silver a new round of drilling in Durango and Oddisey Marine Exploration is waiting for permitting on its offshore project in Baja. On resources, First Majestic Silver, Timmins Gold and Americas Silver Corp released updated resource numbers for a total of nine properties in Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango Zacatecas and Mexico State. On mining, Sierra Metals, First Majestic and Alix Resources released their results for year 2015, while on finance Excellon Resources and Alix Resources announced private placements to fund their work. Finally, Torex Gold reached commercial production in Guerrero.

On Exploration.

• Colibri Resource Corp. announced that their JV partner, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. is planning to drill the Pitaya property in Sonora.
• Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. disclosed its 2015 results, among which states it is awaiting approval of its environmental permit application on its submarine phosphate project Don Diego, off the coast of Baja
• Mag Silver Corp. disclosed its 2015 annual results, providing the update for the year on the exploration of its Juanicipio property in Zacatecas, held in JV with Fresnillo PLC. “Development at the Juanicipio project remains focused on the continued ramp advancement and associated underground mining infrastructure, as well as on some metallurgical and geotechnical studies”. On exploration, it is highlighted the wide and well mineralized intervals intersected 100m below the deepest previous drilling, that may indicate an ore-fluid upwelling zone, and a very good mineral potential.
• Southern Silver Exploration Corp. announced a new round of drilling at its Cerro Las Minitas property in Durango, starting on the first week of April, and describing targets for three diamond holes.

On Resources.

• First Majestic Silver Corp. presented an updated technical report for its La Encantada mine in Coahuila. It provides all-inclusive resources of 7 M tons @ 171.1 g/t Ag and 0.43% Pb, for a total of 38.5 M Oz Ag and 66.4 M Lb Pb (Cautionary note.- Resources are said to be inclusive of reserves, but reserves are calculated with a larger tonnage than resources). As for recoveries, these are in the range from 58 % to 67 % for silver from different orebodies and 60 % for lead. In the case of re-processing old tailings, metallurgy studies are showing improvement of up to 70 % recovery by implementing roasting.
• Timmins Gold Corp. released an updated technical report on its San Francisco mine in Sonora. The new measured and indicated resource (mineral reserves inclusive) amounts to 34.6 Mt at 0.62 g/t Au, for a total of 693 K Oz Au. The inferred resource is on 0.95 Mt of ore at 1.33 g/t Au, for a total of 45 K Oz Au. Included on these numbers are underground M+I resources of 53 K Oz Au (0.48 Mt at 3.48 g/t Au) and inferred resources 27 K Oz Au (0.24 Mt at 3.5 g/t Au). The resource base reported is considerably lower than the one of the 2013 technical report, especially in the inferred resources category.
• First Majestic Silver Corp. released its resource base to the end of 2015, including M + I resources for its six mining units: La Encantada (33.2 M Oz AgEq, see above), La Parrilla (24.6 M Oz AgEq) , San Martín (21 M Oz AgEq), Del Toro (34.9 M Oz AgEq), La Guitarra (13.4 M Oz AgEq), Santa Elena (29.1 M Oz AgEq), for a total of 156.3 M Oz AgEq. Those resources show grades that range from 170 g/t AgEq to 443 AgEq, with an average of 247 g/t AgEq. Furthermore, the inferred resource category includes those six mines and the La Joya project in Durango, with a total of 273 M Oz AgEq.
• Americas Silver Corp. updated its resource base to the end of 2015, with its Cosalá operation in Sinaloa including a maiden resource for the San Rafael area. The all-inclusive resource base adds up to 49 M Oz Ag, 38.5 M Lb Cu, 335 M Lb Pb and 712 M Lb Zn, hosted in 15.6 M tonnes of ore at an average grade of 97 g/t Ag, 0.11 % Cu, 1 % Pb and 2 % Zn

On Financing

• Excellon Resources announced a non-brokered private placement by Eric Sprott for gross proceeds of C$ 3 million dollars.
• Alix Resources Corp. announced that it is increasing the non-brokered private placement announced on February 10th, 2016 from four million units to ten million units, for aggregate gross proceeds of $500,000.

On Mining

• Sierra Metals Inc. released its 2015 results, which include production from its Bolivar and Cusi mines in Chihuahua, but without disclosing production per mine unit. Cash cost per copper equivalent pound was $1.34 and AISC $2.33 at Bolívar while cash cost per silver equivalent ounce at Cusi was $9.03 and AISC $26.79. The 2016 guidelines include processing of about a million tons of ore at Bolívar and some 200 K tons at Cusi, for a target of up to 600K Oz Ag, 21.7 M Lb Cu, and 4.3 K Oz Au at Bolivar and up to 1 M Oz Ag, 3.5 M Lb Pb and 800 Oz Au at Cusi.
• Americas Silver Corp. produced its year end results for 2015, having produced 1.15 M ounces of silver and 2.4 million silver equivalent ounces at a cash cost of $10.80 per ounce and an all‐in sustaining cost of $14.89 per ounce

On Deals

• Kootenay Silver Inc. announced an agreement with Coeur Capital Inc. to acquire its 2.5% net smelter return royalty on future production from Northair Silver Corp.’s La Cigarra project, located in Chihuahua.
• Millrock Resources Inc. announced an option JV agreement with Centerra Gold Inc. concerning its Los Chinos and Los Cuarentas gold projects in Sonora. Under the option agreement, Centerra can earn a 70% interest by completing US$5.0 million in exploration expenditures at Los Chinos and US$2.0 million at Los Cuarentas, over a five-year period.

On Development

• Torex Gold Resources Inc. announced that commercial production has been achieved at its El Limon-Guajes mine in Guerrero, having operated 30 consecutive days at 9,470 tonnes per day. Recoveries are close the design level of 87.4 %.

In the image below, a strongly sericitized and quartz veined biotite gneiss, Las Cruces ranch, Sonora.