The Vancouver-headquartered company said Monday results from its 2018 exploration campaign, including 22,500m of diamond drilling, were highlighted by rapid growth of the Nuvuyak discovery.

Sabina said a strong down plunge extension of about 50m was confirmed by new results from hole 18GSE559 that returned 8.17 grams per tonne over 13m, while drill hole wedge cut 18GSE559W1 returned 12.41g/t over 8.7m.

"Our success in making a new discovery at the Nuvuyak target, high-grade optimisation drilling at Umwelt Vault, confirming a sizable extension at Llama and demonstrating the Boulder property as an area for potential new discoveries, are significant developments in 2018. This work continues to unlock a much larger picture in terms of resource and district potential and overall mine life extension," CEO Bruce McLeod said.

By the end of the 2018 summer drill programme Nuvuyak had been tested over about 200m along strike. The target remained open and untested in all directions with strong geologic control shown through current drilling intersections, the company said.

The Sabina geological team has hypothesised that an interconnected large-scale mineralised trend or several related trends exists at the Goose property, extending from the southern Goose Main zone to the northern Llama zone. The Nuvuyak discovery added credence to this theory, it said.

Significant portions of the Goose property are largely unexplored and Sabina plans to continue with targeting of these areas in follow-up exploration.

"This work continues to unlock a much larger picture in terms of resource and district potential and overall mine life extension," McLeod said.

Sabina is in the final stages of designing and budgeting a programme of field mapping, rock sampling, till sampling, geophysics and diamond drilling at Back River. This work is aimed at expanding existing resources and delineating exploration targets with the potential to positively impact project economics.

The company expects to undertake a 6,000m spring drilling programme from early March, with a further follow-up programme during the summer months.

This year's drilling would focus on following up on the significant 2018 results at Nuvuyak along with testing several targets that include the up-plunge trending Hook zone and higher-grade areas of the Llama extension structure, the company said.

Sabina closed Monday 5.5% or C7c in the red at $1.21, bringing the company's cumulative 12-month decline to 46%.