TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Gold ounces shipped from TSX-listed Atna Resources' Pinson mine, located near Winnemucca, Nevada, increased by 75% quarter-over-quarter in the second quarter ended June 30.
This placed the Pinson ramp-up on target to achieve a more than 12 000-oz-a-quarter production rate by year-end.
During the second quarter, the mine shipped 13 260 t of ore at an estimated grade of 0.402 oz/t, containing about 5 320 oz of gold, compared with shipping 7 977 t of ore containing 3 043 oz in the first quarter. Atna made six ore shipments over the second quarter.
Gold recovery for ore sold in the quarter was estimated at about 94.5%, of which Atna would be paid for 73.9% of the recovered gold value. Since Pinson restarted, 29 070 t of ore at a grade of about 0.389 oz/t had been shipped.
The operating time at Pinson was increased to a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week schedule in June and crew sizes would increase as more working faces were developed. Assay lab operations at Pinson started during the quarter and were now supporting daily production requirements.
Second-quarter development work comprised extending existing drives to the Adams Peak zone on two levels and initial access into the Range Front zone. The Adams Peak zone was expected to be the primary ore source for Pinson in the second half of the year. Further work would be completed to deepen the primary ramp to enable further levels of the Ogee and Otto zones to be developed.
Ore mining operations at the Briggs mine, in California, would stop this month, with crushing operations ceasing at the end of July. Process operations were expected to continue at the site over the next several years to recover about 18 000 oz of gold inventory in the process plants and on the leach pads.