Mar 22 2021
Golden Minerals Company reports that it has started an exploration drilling program at its operating Rodeo gold mine situated in (Durango State, Mexico) with the goal of expanding the resource.
Image Credit: Phawat/ shutterstock.com
The program will cover around 2,000 m of exploration drilling at chosen near-surface targets situated right next to the present pit. The program can increase the life of the Rodeo mine far more than the presently predicted life of approximately 2.5 years.
Findings should start to be available in the next few months and any newly added resources will be integrated into the production plans of the company.
Recent mining activities at the Rodeo open pit gold mine have revealed very interesting expansion targets that, in my opinion, could potentially extend Rodeo’s life by a meaningful amount.”
Warren Rehn, President and Chief Executive Officer, Golden Minerals Company
“Based on our previous drilling, we thought the higher-grade mineralization was closed off to the north by two drill holes; however, it is now apparent that those drill holes likely missed the main mineralized zone. Our more complete understanding of the geology of the deposit based on the new open pit exposures lead us directly to the current drill targets,” added Rehn.
Golden Minerals started mining at Rodeo in late December 2020 and declared that it had started processing at a rate of around 200 tonnes per day (“tpd”) in mid-January 2021, approximately two weeks ahead of the plan and on budget.
At the end of January 2021, the first gold pour of Rodeo occurred. It was during that time Golden Minerals declared that it would be gradually increasing processing to the complete run rate of about 450 tpd.
This was expected to take place by the end of the first quarter of 2021, while installation of a regrind ball mill was completed and then brought online. Such activities tend to stay on track and are predicted to take place by March 31st, 2021.
Golden Minerals has constantly poured gold once a week, although not more often, as scheduled and has exported and sold its first batch of gold-silver bars. It is right on track to complete its predicted yearly production of between 12,000 and 14,000 ounces of gold in 2021.
Source: https://www.goldenminerals.com/