It looks like 2026 will be a pivotal year for Pinnacle Silver and Gold (PINN), after the company hit the ground running in 2025 and established its El Potrero project in Mexico as an enticing potential high grade gold and silver opportunity.
“2025 was a pivotal year for Pinnacle with the rapid progress towards production on the Potrero project,” said Robert Archer, Pinnacle’s chief executive.
“After only 10 months on the project, we have established a substantial high-grade epithermal gold-silver system and are ready to initiate underground delineation drilling to be followed by surface drilling to fill in gaps and test new targets. Metallurgical test work is continuing, and discussions are progressing for an offtake agreement to secure production financing. Project evaluations are also ongoing, with the goal of making another acquisition this year. We look forward to continued progress through 2026 and to keeping shareholders up to date on the company’s development.”
It's now known that the El Potrero Project contains a low-sulphidation epithermal gold-silver system 1,600 metres along strike and 500 metres in width in the northern part of the property. This type of deposit is common throughout the Sierra Madre of western Mexico and hosts many significant mines.
The veins at El Potrero exhibit many of the same features that are characteristic of this type of deposit, yet the project has not been systematically explored and has always been privately owned.
Pinnacle’s geological team has been conducting extensive and systematic surface and underground mapping and took 1,196 samples in 2025. This work has included the definition of other veins such as El Capulin and La Estrella that expand the mineralizing system laterally and potentially have more vertical continuity.
Overall, this work has not only confirmed the geological model but is ongoing in developing a detailed understanding of the grade distribution and exploration potential that is so important to future targeting for drilling and resource development.
One feature of low sulphidation epithermal deposits is that the grades can be locally very high. El Potrero displays this characteristic with individual underground channel samples grading up to 85.1 grams per tonne gold and 520 grams silver, while surface sampling returned similar gold values but higher silver grades up to 2,280 grams.
Diamond drilling, more sampling, and mineralogical work will be necessary to determine if this indicates a vertical zonation of silver or simply a surficial feature.
A key component of moving towards production is the determination of a deposit’s metallurgy. As such, three samples were taken from underground at the historic Pinos Cuates mine, the central of the three main mines on the Dos de Mayo structure, and sent to SGS Durango for preliminary test work.
The samples were prepped and assayed then underwent grinding and gravity separation tests, and bottle roll leaching. Given that these were preliminary tests, there was no optimization, yet the results from leach tests indicated gold recoveries ranging from 92.81% to 96.79% and averaging 95.09%. Silver recoveries were lower and more variable, due to more complex mineralogy, and ranged from 41.41% to 73.53%, averaging 54.68%. Mineralogical studies and further optimization will be required to obtain consistently higher silver recoveries.
While the results of gravity separation tests were variable, they did indicate that this method would be useful in extracting some of the gold prior to leaching. Pinnacle plans further studies on this.
There’s also a processing plant on site that was built in the late 1980s. It is estimated to be capable of processing about 100 tonnes per day utilising crushing, milling, vat leach and Merrill Crowe circuits, but will need new equipment. Pinnacle has cleaned up the plant site and surrounding infrastructure and conducted a preliminary assessment of the cost to rebuild the plant and install a dry-stack tailings.
Meanwhile, preliminary discussions have been held with local communities in order to ensure strong positive relationships and formalize long-term access agreements. As the geological team is already living in a local small community and the company employs local workers, the communities are very supportive.
One of those communities is Topia, a mining town and staging ground for Pinnacle. Not only is that community very supportive of mining but it is an excellent source of supplies, equipment, contractors and skilled labour.
As regards permitting, the environment in Mexico has improved significantly in the last year, according to Pinnacle. Other mining companies with advanced stage projects are now getting permitted and government departments are clearing the backlog of applications.
To this end, Pinnacle has already conducted meetings with SEMARNAT, the federal environmental ministry, CONAGUA, the federal water agency, and CFE, the federal electrical commission, and preliminary submissions have been made towards obtaining various permits that will be required as the project progresses.
The company now plans to launch an underground definition drilling program on known zones of gold-silver mineralization. Contractors were on site last week to assess the conditions of the mine workings in order to prepare proposals for the work. Priority is being given to delineation drilling of mineralized zones on the Dos de Mayo vein structure that will lead to a preliminary mine plan. It is anticipated that the preparatory work necessary to enlarge the drill stations will begin in early February with drilling to follow once the sites are prepared and secured from a safety perspective.
The first phase of this work will comprise approximately 1,100 meters in about 50 holes, with each hole being in the range of 20-25 metres in length. Beyond that, step-out holes will be prioritized based upon their potential to add resources that could be quickly developed in a production scenario.
Surface drilling will be initiated as soon as permits are in place. Holes will be drilled to fill in gaps in the Dos de Mayo vein that cannot be reached from underground, to step out along strike on the Dos de Mayo vein, and to test the Capulin and Estrella veins. Surface mapping, sampling and prospecting will be continued within this area, and a new crew is being hired to follow up on the numerous targets identified by the recent LiDAR survey. Seven more samples have been taken for continued metallurgical testing.
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Great to see Pinnacle having made such progress in 2025 and laying out a clear plan of work for 2026. The company has recently strengthened its management team with a strong component of experienced locals, many of whom have worked together before, and with chief executive Bob Archer. There’s lots to look forward to in the coming months and, against a backdrop of record precious metals prices, a huge amount of value on offer.