VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Emerging gold and silver miner Golden Queen Mining on Monday declared commercial production at its Soledad Mountain project, located in the Mojave Desert of California.

Vancouver-based Golden Queen reached the milestone Monday after the plant consistently hit an average of 80% of design throughput capacity for the preceding 60 days.

The company processed an average of 10 500 t/d during October and November, with the operations team now focused on increasing ore output and grade from the mine and improving the process plant to further improve its overall operational performance.

"Announcing commercial production at Soledad Mountain represents a major milestone for Golden Queen. This achievement, which is a culmination of decades of effort, is a testament to the dedication and determination of our entire team including our valued contractors and partners,” chairperson and CEO Thomas Clay stated.

The project has already shipped about 17 800 oz of gold and about 184 875 oz of silver since the first pour took place on March 1.

The project uses conventional openpit mining methods and the cyanide heap leach and Merrill-Crowe processes to recover gold and silver from crushed, agglomerated ore.

Gold and silver output is forecast to average about 74 000 oz/y gold and 781 000 oz/y silver, although this is expected to fluctuate from year to year depending upon the ore head grades. Gold and silver output is planned to be 807 000 oz of gold and 8.3-million ounces of silver over an eleven-year mine life, and based on base case metals prices of $1 250/oz gold and $17/oz silver.

The mine plan is based on proven and probable reserves of 46.31-million tonnes grading 0.66 g/t gold, for 983 600 oz and 11.09 g/t silver, for 16.52-million ounces. Measured and indicated resources stand at 83.54-million tonnes grading 0.58 g/t gold and 9.53 g/t silver, for 1.55-million ounces gold and 25.6-million ounces silver.