Outcrop Silver's 23.5% Increase of Indicated Mineral Resource at Santa Ana & PEA Work Begins

• Outcrop Silver's updated Santa Ana resource now totals 57.8 million ounces silver-equivalent, comprising 29.9 million ounces Indicated at 518.7 g/t silver equivalent (AgEq) and 27.9 million ounces Inferred at 368.5 g/t AgEq, classified under a stricter standard than the 2023 maiden estimate.
• New CEO Rob Bruggeman and VP Exploration Carlos Torres have prioritised resource rigour and mine-building discipline over headline growth in ounces.
• A Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) begins at the end of September 2026 and is expected in early 2027, with a preliminary throughput target of roughly 800 to 1,000 tonnes per day.
• Twelve known veins remain untested and the 17-kilometre mineralized corridor is open at both ends, meaning roughly 95,000 further metres of drilling would be needed to reach the company's stated 100 million ounce target.
• Colombia's government repealed ten restrictive mining resolutions in September 2026 and has targeted $4 billion in mining investment through 2030.

Silver's supply squeeze has been building for years - the market has now run a cumulative deficit of 762 million ounces since 2021, driven in large part by a 110% jump in solar-related industrial demand. Against that backdrop, primary silver deposits - projects where silver, not a base metal, drives the economics - are scarce: they account for only 26% of global mine supply. Outcrop Silver & Gold Corporation (TSX:OCG, OTCQX:OCGSF, FRA:MRG) says its Santa Ana project in Tolima, Colombia sits squarely in that scarce category, and its newly updated mineral resource estimate is the clearest evidence yet.

On September 14, 2026, Outcrop reported an Updated Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for Santa Ana of 29.9 million ounces silver-equivalent (AgEq) Indicated at 518.7 g/t AgEq, plus 27.9 million ounces AgEq Inferred at 368.5 g/t AgEq - a combined 57.8 million ounces across 13 vein systems, built on 130,006 metres of drilling in 646 holes. Of the Indicated grade, 72.6% of value comes from silver and 27.4% from gold, a split the company calls "true primary silver" rather than a base-metals-with-credits story.

New Team, More Rigorous Resource

The update lands under a new leadership team. Rob Bruggeman, an equities analyst and investor by background who previously chaired AbraSilver through its growth from a sub-$10 million market cap to over $2 billion, took over as President and CEO roughly five months ago. He brought in Carlos Torres, a Colombia-based geologist and qualified person under NI 43-101, as Vice President of Exploration earlier this year.

Bruggeman has been explicit that he prioritised rigour over headline growth in the new estimate. 

"I don't want a resource estimate that is maybe overly optimistic just because that was what was promised or just to compare to another resource estimate I had nothing to do with. I want something that's really good because we're now going to do a PEA and we're going to think about [building a] mine."

Outcrop applied a more rigorous classification standard than its 2023 maiden estimate, requiring both a defined search distance and a minimum number of supporting drill holes (three for Indicated, two for Inferred), rather than a single distance-based criterion. Despite a near-tripling of total drilling since 2023, Indicated resources grew a comparatively modest 23.5%, while Inferred resources rose 106.3%. Some previously counted ounces were also lost on shallow-dipping veins that don't lend themselves as readily to the selective mining methods planned for Santa Ana.

Grade Is King: Inside the Numbers

Grade is the headline feature. Santa Ana's Indicated resource averages 518.7 g/t AgEq, among the highest of any primary silver development project globally when benchmarked against peers including Blackrock Silver, Silver47, Contango Silver and Gold, Vizsla Silver and Argenta Silver. Individual veins run considerably higher: Las Maras leads at 854.8 g/t AgEq Indicated (containing 5.3 Moz), followed by El Dorado at 686.7 g/t, Paraiso at 634.4 g/t and Guadual at 592.9 g/t. Metallurgical recoveries are strong too, at 96.3% for silver and 98.5% for gold, producing a high-quality concentrate grading 4,187 g/t silver and 52.1 g/t gold.

Thirteen vein systems now host resources, but the company is clear that not all will be mined at once. Bruggeman said the company will sequence development, starting with the highest-grade veins: 

"All 13 veins will get mined but they're going to get sequenced. And so we're going to go after the high-grade like Las Maras first. As well as we've got other veins that are over 600 g/t. Such as El Dorado, Paraiso."

Interview with Rob Bruggeman, Director & CEO of Outcrop Silver

Path To PEA From Veins To Mine Plan

Outcrop is starting a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) at the end of September 2026, with drilling expected to continue in parallel and the PEA itself budgeted at roughly C$0.5 million. Bruggeman flagged narrow, steeply dipping veins as the central engineering challenge: because vein widths are often under a metre, mining method and dilution control will determine both cost and output. Santa Ana's location works in the company's favour with lower Colombian labour costs support selective cut-and-fill mining with a minimum mining width of one metre, versus the two-to-three-metre widths that mechanised mining in a higher-cost jurisdiction would require.

Bruggeman sized the opportunity around combined Indicated and Inferred resources, targeting roughly 6-7 years of initial mine life from that base before exploration upside and Inferred-to-Indicated conversion extend it further. A simple flowsheet of gravity concentration plus flotation and strong existing infrastructure (paved highway access, grid power, water and a local workforce) should keep initial capital costs down, in the company's view, with underground development metres the larger cost driver. A pilot plant, estimated at roughly C$5 million, is also planned as a proof of execution ahead of a larger build.

Growing The Resource

Outcrop's 2026 drill program totals 35,000 metres, run across four rigs, following 30,335 metres drilled in 2025. Management calculates that historical drilling has added approximately 445 ounces of AgEq per metre drilled - a return-on-capital metric the company wants to sustain. Reaching a stated long-term target of 100 million ounces from the current 57.8 million would require roughly another 95,000 metres at that rate, implying a minimum of about two-and-a-half years at the current drill pace, alongside continued conversion of twelve known but as-yet-undrilled vein systems and ongoing claim consolidation across a 17-kilometre strike length that remains open at both ends. 

Future drilling has two distinct goals: upgrading higher-grade inferred material to indicated status where it sits next to ground already slated for early mining, and testing the twelve untested veins to see which are strong enough to warrant full drill-out versus simply being logged and left for later. Bruggeman has said he wants exploration and mine development to run side by side rather than one after the other, so that by the time a mine is built, years of remaining resource growth are already banked. On cost, drilling at a 35,000-40,000 metre annual pace runs to roughly C$15 million a year, well above the PEA's roughly C$0.5 million budget and the planned pilot plant's roughly C$5 million cost.

Colombia's Improving Mining Backdrop

Santa Ana sits within Colombia's historic Mariquita mining district, with documented mining activity dating to 1585, and near several currently operating mines including Aris Mining's Segovia and Marmato operations. The company also points to a shift in the domestic political backdrop: the Colombian government repealed ten restrictive mining resolutions in September 2026, reopening areas that had been frozen for up to a decade, and has targeted $4 billion in mining investment through 2030 via faster permitting and stronger investor certainty that pushing mining up the fiscal priority list. 

Outcrop's own standing in the district goes beyond geology: the company reports 130 employees, 85% of them local hires and 35% women, along with reforestation of over 6,800 trees, support for local coffee and cacao farmers, and a jewellery-making training programme it runs in Falan. Colombian mine permitting itself runs through four stages across two authorities - a mining title and technical mine plan approved nationally, followed by an environmental licence from the regional authority, before construction and production can begin - and Santa Ana's exploration-stage title is already secured, removing one layer of uncertainty that earlier-stage peers still awaiting title have yet to clear.

Investment Thesis for Outcrop Silver

• The 2026 Updated MRE lifted to 57.8 million total AgEq ounces under a stricter classification standard, with Indicated grade of 518.7 g/t AgEq ranking among the highest of any primary silver developer globally.
• A Preliminary Economic Assessment starts end of September 2026, expected in early 2027, and will be the first formal test of mine economics, throughput and initial capital cost.
• New CEO Rob Bruggeman and VP Exploration Carlos Torres have prioritised a defensible resource over headline ounces, alongside a stated plan to move the company's valuation basis from a crude in-situ metric toward NPV/discounted cash flow.
• Twelve known vein systems are not yet in the resource, and the 17 km mineralised corridor is open at both ends.
• Eric Sprott holds approximately 20% and Jupiter Asset Management approximately 9%, with C$15 million cash and C$8 million of in-the-money warrants as of August 1, 2026.
• Near term catalyst include Q3-2026 resource execution against the stated 100 Moz growth target, PEA throughput and capital cost assumptions when released, and further drill results from the twelve untested veins.
• Risks include exploration-stage and PEA-stage economics remain unproven as narrow vein widths and dilution management are the key technical risk to projected costs and output.

Macro Thematic Analysis

Silver's structural supply deficit is the backdrop against which Santa Ana's story is being told. The World Silver Survey 2026 puts the cumulative supply-demand deficit since 2021 at 762 million ounces, with roughly 74% of mine supply price-inelastic because it comes as a byproduct of base-metal mining rather than from primary silver operations. That scarcity is precisely why Outcrop frames Santa Ana as a "true primary silver project" rather than a polymetallic story with silver credits - 72.6% of contained value in the Indicated resource is silver, versus a market where primary silver projects represent barely a quarter of total ounces mined. Bruggeman argues the market has so far been valuing Santa Ana on a rough in-situ-ounce basis that "doesn't reflect your jurisdiction, your grade, proximity to surface, metallurgy," rather than on the discounted cash flow an economic study would support. 

"My goal is over the next 6-12 months is to shift that valuation approach, get it away from just in-situ, and focused on NPV or discounted future cash flow."

Whether that re-rating happens will depend heavily on the PEA delivering credible throughput, capital cost and payback numbers, but the underlying commodity tailwind of solar-driven industrial demand growing 110% between 2021 and 2025 gives primary silver developers like Outcrop a more forgiving market backdrop than they've had in years.

TL;DR

Outcrop Silver & Gold's updated Santa Ana resource now stands at 57.8 million ounces silver-equivalent (29.9 Moz Indicated at 518.7 g/t, 27.9 Moz Inferred), built under a stricter classification standard than the 2023 maiden estimate. New CEO Rob Bruggeman, previously chairman of Aberra Silver, has prioritised resource rigour and mine-building discipline over headline growth, and a Preliminary Economic Assessment starts this month, expected in early 2027. Twelve known veins remain untested, and the 17 km mineralised corridor is open at both ends. Colombia's government has repealed ten restrictive mining resolutions and targeted $4 billion in mining investment through 2030. Eric Sprott holds roughly 20% of the company.

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