Aya Gold and Silver Drills 593 g/t Silver Equivalent Over 15.2 Metres With 14 Rigs Turning at Boumadine

Aya Gold & Silver Inc. (TSX: AYA; NASDAQ: AYA) reported drill results from its Boumadine project in Morocco on September 22, 2026, and the best of them ran 593 grams per tonne silver equivalent over 15.2 metres. The company said the holes "confirm strong high-grade continuity along the Boumadine Main Trend and support the potential for continued resource growth."

Four other holes in the release carried the same message. BOU-DD26-848 returned 392 g/t silver equivalent over 24.3 metres, with a richer 10.0-metre core running 776 g/t inside it. BOU-DD26-861 gave 1,030 g/t over 4.1 metres, and a single metre inside that assayed 2,827 g/t silver equivalent, driven by 2,477 g/t of silver. BOU-DD26-834 returned 696 g/t over 5.7 metres. BOU-DD26-0950 returned 299 g/t over 15.1 metres starting just 19 metres below surface, which is shallow enough to matter to a mine plan.

These are good holes. Aya has been drilling this trend hard for two years, and the release says the grade is still there.

The programme behind the intercepts is the bigger number

Five holes make a headline. The scale of the work is the part that changes what Boumadine can become.

Aya reported 406 diamond drill holes and 145,719 metres completed at Boumadine so far in 2026. The company describes that as 38.6 per cent of a 360,000-metre infill programme running across 2026 and 2027, and says 14 drills are currently turning. Chief executive Benoit La Salle framed the pace directly: "With over 145,000 metres drilled year-to-date and 14 drills currently turning, we are aggressively advancing the 2026-2027 infill and expansion program ahead of the updated Feasibility Study expected next year."

Infill drilling is worth explaining, because it is not the same activity as discovery. A deposit is first outlined with widely spaced holes, which produces an "inferred" resource: geologists are confident the metal is there in a general sense, but the spacing is too loose to mine from. Drilling more holes in between tightens the spacing until the estimate becomes "indicated," the category an engineer is allowed to build a production schedule on. Infill holes rarely find anything new. Their job is to make what is already known reliable enough to commit capital against.

That is precisely the task Boumadine faces. The updated preliminary economic assessment Aya released on September 9, 2026 was built on a February 28, 2026 mineral resource estimate of 8.6 million tonnes at 4.02 g/t gold equivalent in the indicated category, containing 1.1 million ounces, and 45.4 million tonnes at 2.92 g/t gold equivalent inferred, containing 4.3 million ounces. Roughly four fifths of the contained metal sits in the looser category. The infill programme is the mechanism for moving it.

What a silver equivalent number is, and what it is not

"Silver equivalent" is a way of writing several metals as one figure. Boumadine carries silver, gold, zinc, lead and copper in the same rock. The company converts each of them into the amount of silver that would be worth the same money, adds them up, and reports the total in grams of silver per tonne. It is a convenience, not a measurement of silver.

That conversion depends entirely on the prices and recovery rates chosen. Aya published both, which many companies do not:

One consequence is worth following through, because it runs against the direction most people assume. The release header on September 22, 2026 carried silver at US$65.59 per ounce, more than twice the US$30 used in the arithmetic. Since silver is the unit of measure, a higher silver price turns the gold, zinc and lead in a hole into fewer silver-equivalent grams, not more. The headline numbers are therefore not a revenue estimate and do not become larger when silver rallies.

The underlying metal content is in the release for each hole, which is the part that does not move. BOU-DD26-883, the 593 g/t intercept, carried 1.05 g/t gold, 319 g/t silver, 5.3 per cent zinc and 3.5 per cent lead over 15.2 metres. Those four numbers are the result. The equivalent figure is the packaging.

What the September results feed into

The September 9 study put an after-tax net present value of US$3.5 billion on Boumadine at a 5 per cent discount rate, with a 93 per cent internal rate of return, US$463 million of initial capital, a 0.7-year payback and a 14-year life, at assumed prices of US$3,500 per ounce gold and US$50 per ounce silver. Average annual production in the first five years was put at 348 thousand ounces of gold equivalent at an all-in sustaining cost of US$1,105 per ounce.

A preliminary economic assessment is the earliest of the three standard Canadian study levels, and it is allowed to include inferred material. A feasibility study is the last of the three and generally is not. So the study now under way has to be fed by drilling that upgrades the resource, and the drilling reported on September 22 is that work arriving. The company has not published an updated resource estimate incorporating these holes.

None of the September 22 results are in the February resource estimate. That is the ordinary sequence, not a shortfall, and it is the reason the drilling matters more than any single intercept.

Aya pays for this out of a mine that is already running

The reason the programme can run at 14 rigs is on the income statement. Aya's Zgounder silver mine in Morocco reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of US$96.8 million on August 13, 2026, up 151 per cent year over year, with net income of US$35.0 million and 1.5 million ounces of silver produced. Cash cost was US$17.69 per silver ounce sold. The company reported US$182.8 million of cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter.

That distinction is the one that separates Boumadine from most projects of its size. The company is not raising money to drill; it is spending mine cash flow. Maple's September 13 coverage made the same point about Zgounder earning Aya the standing to talk about a second project, and nothing in the September 22 release changes it.

SEDAR+ was not readable when this was written, so the cash figure is the company's own second-quarter number as at June 30, 2026 and is not verified against interim statements filed since.

How the market took it

Shares closed at C$42.68 on September 22, 2026, up C$2.44 or 6.1 per cent, with a day range of C$40.15 to C$43.12. Volume on the Toronto line was 1,168,662 shares, close to the 1.2 million 30-day average. Market value was about C$6.15 billion on 144.06 million shares (exchange closing data, 15-minute delayed).

That is a record close. The highest previous close in the price history the quote feeds carry is C$41.27, set on September 9, 2026 when the updated study landed, and the highest previous intraday level is C$41.98, from August 27, 2026. The September 22 session passed both, trading as high as C$43.12.

A 6.1 per cent gain on ordinary volume, carrying the shares through their previous high, is the market treating the drilling as continuous with the study that preceded it rather than as a surprise.

The limits Aya itself sets out

The release carries its own qualifications, and they are the ones to hold onto. Reported intervals are core lengths. True widths are not yet determined, which means the real thickness of the mineralised zone perpendicular to itself could be less than the metres quoted. Assay values are uncut, so a single very high metre such as the 2,827 g/t interval in BOU-DD26-861 has not been capped for its effect on an average. Results are not incorporated in the current mineral resource estimate. The updated feasibility study is expected next year and has not been delivered.

Analytical work was done by Afrilab in Marrakech, with standards and blanks inserted every 20 samples, fire assay for gold and reanalysis of silver above 200 g/t. David Lalonde, B.Sc., P.Geo., executive vice-president exploration, is the qualified person who approved the technical content, per the September 22, 2026 release.

Boumadine on September 22 is a deposit being converted rather than found, at a pace very few developers of its size can pay for out of their own production. That is what a feasibility study on the calendar is built out of.

Transparency note > Transparency note. This is an independent due-diligence analysis and editorial opinion piece produced by The Maple Markets editorial desk. It is not sponsored, promoted or commissioned, and no compensation of any kind has been received from Aya Gold & Silver Inc. (TSX: AYA) or any party acting on their behalf. The analysis is based on public disclosure available as of the publish date; every figure is attributed to its primary source. The Maple Markets and its authors may hold positions in securities mentioned; nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, and readers should not treat it as investment advice. Past disclosure does not guarantee future results. Policies: Editorial Standards · Financial Disclaimer.