Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. ("Avino" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that it has completed installation and testing on the new 250 tonne per day ("tpd") circuit ("Circuit 2") at its processing facility located on the Avino property near Durango, Mexico.
The new circuit was commissioned on April 11th, 2013 and is currently being used to process historic surface stockpiled material left from past mining of the main Avino vein. The Company expects the stockpiles will provide enough mill feed for approximately seven months of operations. During the third quarter of 2012, Circuit 1 (250 tpd) produced 50,074 ounces of silver equivalent (calculated) from the same stock piles, Avino expects output will be similar from Circuit 2. After the historic stockpiles have been depleted, the new circuit will have the ability to process additional mill feed from the San Gonzalo and Avino Mines as they are developed at depth. The circuit could also be used for toll milling and to potentially process material from other high priority targets elsewhere on the property once further exploration and development has been completed.
Estimated and rounded data from the first week of production are as follows:
- Average daily throughput: 205 tpd
- Average feed grades: 85 g/t Ag, 1 g/t Au
- Metallurgical Recoveries: 67% for silver and 54% for gold
- Concentrate Grades: 3,600 g/t silver and 32 g/t gold
Circuit 2 brings the current processing capacity at the plant to 500 tpd. Avino plans to further expand the plant to 1,500 tpd with the re-commissioning of an additional 1,000 tpd circuit ("circuit 3") to be completed in 2014 which will be used to treat new material from the historic main Avino mine.
In order to start production next year, the Avino Mine is currently being de-watered. New underground earth moving machinery will be acquired and financed through Caterpillar using a $5 million credit facility announced in December 2012 (see news release dated Dec 20th, 2012)
Source: http://www.avino.com/