TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – A 1 600 t/d ball mill failure at Mexico-focused midtier miner Endeavour Silver's Bolañitos plant is not expected to impact the company's full-year output.
TSX- and NYSE-listed Endeavour said on Friday that a motor failure had caused unplanned outages this week.
The motor had been sent out for repairs and the ball mill was expected to back up and running in about two to three weeks.
The Bolañitos plant would continue to operate at 600 t/d during the repair period and the downtime was not expected to impact mine output for the year owing to management having previously guided that the Bolañitos mine production rate would reduce to 1 000 t/d by mid-year.
The outage could have a minor impact on forecast second-quarter output from the El Cubo mine, located in the same district of Guanajuato as Bolañitos, because El Cubo was currently in the middle of a mine expansion from 1 500 t/d to 2 200 t/d.
The extra mine tonnes were planned to be trucked for processing to the Bolañitos plant to take advantage of its available capacity.
These additional El Cubo tonnes would now be stockpiled for processing in the third quarter.
Endeavour reported that the El Cubo mine expansion was well under way, recording seven days of processing more than 2 000 t/d in May. A second mining contractor would start work shortly to facilitate the mine expansion to 2 200 t/d.
The El Cubo plant was optimised in the first quarter and was now operating well above its original design capacity of 1 500 t/d.
Endeavour in March revised its silver production estimate upwards for 2015 by 11% to a range of 6.3-million to 7-million ounces. Gold output rose by 27% to between 60 000 oz and 66 000 oz, and silver equivalent production was now forecast to be about 10.4-million to 11.6-million ounces at a 70:1 silver-to-gold ratio.