Century Mining Corp has stopped operations at its San Juan gold mine in Peru. The milling and processing operations have been suspended after an order was passed by the Peruvian government. The Canadian company said that the suspension came after the Peruvian government’s aired concerns about permitting tailings dams at the site.
Century Mining said they have provided appropriate documentation to show that the permits had been issued for the tailings dams. They have also filed a formal legal petition asking for the order to be lifted. As of now the mill remains idle but mining operations that had been suspended for four days have started up again.
Last month the company had to stop development at a section of the Lamaque gold mine in Quebec. This was a result of a crusher failure that emptied out the finances for the project. The replacement of the broken down crusher and the disappointing grade of ore mined at Lamaque had affected it production.
Estimated first quarter production of Century Mining at both the Lamaque and San Juan projects was recently announced by the company. Lamaque produced 5,815 ounces of gold and San Juan produced 4,383 ounces of gold. This was slightly lower than the 4,921 ounces of gold that San Juan had produced in the first quarter of 2010.
In an effort to boost production the company is now fine tuning its grade control and upgrading its equipment at the mines. They hope to have a higher production in the second quarter of the year as long as the Peru Government order gets lifted.