Aura Minerals announced that the Aranzazu mine, located in Zacatecas, Mexico, has declared commercial production effective 10 December 2018.
Image: Silver bullion bar 1000oz top view. Photo courtesy of Unit 5/Wikipedia.
Highlights
- The Plant start-up commenced officially on September 3, 2018
- Excellent safety record during ramp-up period and throughout the completion of various infrastructure projects
- Commercial production achieved ahead of schedule by almost two months and below budget
- First shipment of Concentrate delivered on October 16, 2018
Rodrigo Barbosa, the company’s president and CEO noted, “Commercial production is a significant milestone for our team that has delivered ahead of schedule and below budget. Our team has great experience and motivation to continue to deliver these kinds of results and I want to personally thank all of our team for their hard work.
“To optimize the restart, we opted for a shorter life of mine, however, we are very excited about Aranzazu’s future and expect the life of mine to be considerably extended after we implement the new geological investment strategy in 2019. We expect concentrate from Aranzazu to significantly add to the Company’s EBITDA for a long time.”
The company continues to further progress on the underground mine development and operational improvements to the plant in order to reach full production. Construction of the new tailings disposal facility (TD5) is close to completion while the operation continues to store tailings in the historic TD1 and TD2 dams, which have sufficient capacity to support the operational activities for the next months.
Source: Company Press Release