TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – NYSE- and TSX-listed Fortuna Silver Mines on Wednesday said it had paid the final $6-million to buy the remaining 45% interest in the Taviche Oeste concession, in Mexico, which contains the high-grade silver/gold Trinidad North discovery.
The company now held full ownership of the concession and said it would continue to advance exploration efforts, which remained open to the north and at depth.
"Given the exciting exploration success at Trinidad North, the company believes it is prudent to control a 100% interest as we work to put this new high-grade silver/gold mineralised area into production by early 2015,” Fortuna president and CEO Jorge Ganoza said.
He added that the first resource estimates were expected by the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, Vancouver-based Fortuna, on Tuesday, announced a new production plan for the nearby San Jose silver/gold mine, which entailed upgrading the current mill expansion programme from a 1 500 t/d operation, to a 1 800 t/d operation, at no extra cost.
The company said the expansion was on track to be complete in the third quarter, after which silver production was expected to increase to 500 000 oz/y and gold production to 4 000 oz/y.
As at December 2012, the San Jose mine had 3.3-million tonnes of probable reserves grading 189 g/t silver, for about 20-million contained silver ounces and 165 700 oz of contained gold at an average grade of 1.57 g/t.
"Once again we have been able to capture opportunities to source more organic growth for the company. This planned increase in throughput at San Jose adds to the exciting news of our recent high-grade discovery of the Trinidad North zone," Ganoza said.