Rio Alto Mining Ltd announced that the first-quarter pre-production at its La Arena gold oxide mine in Peru was 9,385 ounces of gold. The Vancouver based Canadian company has issued a guidance of between 50,000 to 60,000 ounces for 2011.
They have sold 6,909 ounces of gold at an average price of $1,554 per ounce. For silver the figures are 1.021 ounces for an average price of $40.95 per ounce. For the June 1 to August 31 period mine production amounted to 1,080,679 tonnes of ore grading 0.55 grams of gold per tonne and waste moved was 916,064 tonnes.
The first pouring of gold was made by Rio Alto Mining at La Arena on May 9, 2011. It consisted of 1,112 ounces of gold. The company took less than ten months to get to this stage from the time it received the approval of its environmental impact study and began construction of the mine.
By November the company hopes to be able to produce 24,000 tonnes of ore per day commercially. The permitting of a mining operation in Peru involves applying for more than 100 different permits during the life of a project. Rio Alto started the permitting process for the La Arena Gold Oxide Project after it received the Environmental Impact Study approval for the project in July 2010.