Fortuna’s San Jose Mine on Schedule for Production in August 2011
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Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. has provided an update on construction activities at its San Jose silver-gold Project in Oaxaca, Mexico. Construction activities to date are on-time and on-budget with the commissioning of the San Jose mine scheduled for August of 2011.
Construction Highlights as of May 31
— Processing plant construction for start up at 1,000 tpd is 87 percent complete.
— Three stage crushing circuit has been commissioned and crushing of stockpile ore is scheduled to take place in late June. Mounting and installation of the ball mill, flotation cells, thickeners and filters are complete. Piping, electrical and minor equipment mounting and installation are 92 percent complete.
— Tailings dam has been commissioned and is currently storing water for the process.
— New 8MW power substation is in operation and sourcing power to the project.
— Mining of stopes K, L and M is scheduled to commence in July, in line to produce 520,613 ozs Ag and 4,584 ozs Au or 782,851 ozs Ag Eq* in 2011 and 1.7 million ozs Ag and 15,326 ozs Au or 2.6 million ozs Ag Eq* in 2012.
— The mine has built a development ore stockpile of 37,000 tons grading 131 g/t Ag and 1.2 g/t Au.
— To the end of May 2011, $41.9 million invested in construction or 75 percent of CAPEX.
(*) 2011 Ag Eq based on US $23.60 / oz Ag and US $1,350 / oz Au. 2012 Ag Eq based on US $23.10 / oz Ag and US $1,340 / oz Au.
“Construction of the San Jose mine to date has advanced according to plan,” said Jorge Ganoza, president and CEO. “Our contractors continue to deliver high quality work on target and we are on-time and on-budget. In May, we kicked off a staged commissioning of the processing plant beginning with the crushing circuit. We have more than one month’s worth of ore — over 37,000 tons — stockpiled ahead of full commissioning of the mine and processing plant in August. Management looks forward to reporting to our shareholders the start up of commercial production of silver-gold concentrate in the third quarter of this year.”
Fortuna Silver Mines Inc.
Fortuna is a growth oriented, silver and base metal producer focused on mining opportunities in Latin America. Their primary assets are the Caylloma Silver Mine in southern Peru and the San Jose Silver-Gold Project in Mexico. The company is selectively pursuing additional acquisition opportunities.
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