Apr 2 2019
Endeavour Silver Corp. reports that commercial production was realized in mid-March at the El Compas mine in Zacatecas, Mexico. El Compas is the Endeavour Silver’s fourth mine in Mexico, and the first of three development projects being promoted to expand production, lower costs, and stimulate organic growth.
Three other underground silver-gold mines in Mexico are owned and worked by the company; the Guanaceví mine in Durango state and the Bolañitos and El Cubo mines in Guanajuato state. Endeavour has currently finished commissioning of its fourth mine, El Compas in Zacatecas, is progressing the Terronera project in Jalisco to a development decision and studying the Parral project in Chihuahua to increase resources.
We are pleased to announce that the El Compas mine and plant have operated smoothly at above 80% of design capacity since mid-February. The start-up issues we experienced have all been resolved, we now have a spare mill trunnion on site, and our focus has moved to optimizing the production tonnes, grades and recoveries.
Bradford Cooke, CEO and Director, Endeavour Silver Corp.
El Compas shows a nominal plant capacity of 250 tons per day (tpd) at estimated recovery rates of 83% gold and 50% silver. Between February 18th and March 17th, the operation processed development ore from stockpile at an average production rate of 232 tpd (93% of design rate) and recovery rates of 73.5% gold (88% of design rate) and 45.5% silver (63% of design rate but just 13% of revenue).