Patagonia Gold Plc said on Wednesday that it has obtained approval of the the biannual environmental impact report (EIR) for El Tranquilo from authorities of Santa Cruz province of Argentina.

The EIR includes the provision for the development of a decline access for underground drilling at COSE (Cap-Oeste South East) project as well as a bulk sampling for metallurgical test works.

The Argentina-based company said exceptionally high grade gold and silver continues to be encountered on the project, which is located 2 kilometers along strike along strike from the Cap-Oeste including drill hole CSE-049 which intersected 5.47 metres at 274.88g/t gold and 10,378.0g/t silver.

The El Tranquilo property block, covering over 60 square kilometres, contains the COSE project, the Cap-Oeste gold and silver project, the Pampa prospect and the Vetas Norte and Breccia Valentina structural trends.

The property is located approximately 120km to the south east of the Lomada de Leiva gold project where development of a heap leach operation is currently in progress, the press release said.

A 7,000 metre extension and infill drill program is in progress. To date, 15 drill holes (CSE-44-D to CSE-58-D) for 4,478 metres have been completed while assays are pending for 6 drill holes, the company said.