Gold American Mining Corp. (OTC.BB:SILA) has signed an option agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the high-grade silver-gold La Escondida Project located in Sonora State, Mexico.
The La Escondida property is comprised of two mineral concessions that cover 439.8 acres approximately 124 miles northeast of the city of Hermosillo in Sonora State, Mexico. The surrounding region has seen significant recent activity by foreign mining companies. Nineteen miles to the northeast of the property is NYSE-listed Yamana Gold Inc.’s Mercedes project, a development stage gold-silver project expected to start production at a rate of approximately 120,000 gold equivalent ounces per year from 2012. Eighteen miles to the north of Gold American’s La Escondida project is the Oroco Resources Corp.’s Cerro Prieto project, which recently reported 383,833 ounces gold and over 6 million ounces of silver reserves.
The La Escondida property is host to two distinct mineralized targets associated with a fault: a bulk tonnage-style gold-silver-lead disseminated area and a high-grade epithermal vein-hosted silver and gold area.
“The La Escondida project is a valuable addition to our growing project portfolio,” commented Johannes Petersen, President of Gold American. “It has an exciting potential to host a gold-silver deposit and the property’s infrastructure is excellent. A sampling program carried out at the end of 2009 showed that the property contains multiple targets with high-grade silver grades and good values of gold and lead. Several of the target zones remain open in at least one direction, and it has been determined that historic workings reached only the 30 meters depth level. These findings are significant in that there is the potential, with additional exploratory work, to show mineralization over much greater strike lengths and depths,” added Mr. Petersen.
Randgold Resources (Nasdaq:GOLD) posted a quarterly profit increase of 52% on the previous quarter and 92% on the corresponding prior year quarter, while its profit for the six months to June was up 88% year on year.
Randgold also reported that commissioning of the plant at its new Tongon mine in C�te d�Ivoire was under way ahead of schedule. Because of the expected earlier start-up, Tongon�s production guidance for this year had been increased by approximately 10%. The company said it is targeting to bring the start of construction at the giant Kibali project in the Democratic Republic of Congo forward by six months to the middle of 2011 in the light of the rapid progress it had made in the pre-development phase.
While production for the quarter was down 17%, the profit of US$36.4 million was boosted by a higher gold price, a gain of US$6.3 million on the sale of part of the company�s stake in Volta Resources and by the write-back of a US$13 million provision in respect of an investment in Auction Rate Securities following the settlement of this issue.
Production and hence the cost profile for the quarter were impacted by issues at Randgold�s flagship Loulo operation in Mali, which suffered from extensive power black-outs during the period. Loulo is also still settling down its plant expansion project and dealing with the Yalea underground development. Production and cost levels are expected to be back on target by the fourth quarter.
Chief executive Mark Bristow said in spite of the dip at Loulo the group�s production guidance for the year remained within 5% of the original target.
Jaguar Mining Inc. (NYSE:JAG) reports its financial and operational results for the period ended June 30, 2010.
Commenting on the Q2 2010 results, Daniel R. Titcomb, Jaguar’s President and CEO stated, “Our second quarter operational and financial performance was sharply below our plans as a result of geo-mechanical rock issues at the Turmalina operation. To overcome this issue, our technical team has been changing the mining method from selective stoping to cut and fill, however at a slower pace than planned. We are confident the transition to a cut-and-fill method will decrease dilution and lead to improved feed grades into the plant. Although still early, we are achieving sharp improvements in the limited number of cuts mined during July with overall dilution now running approximately 12 to 15%. However, we will not have the new development and sequencing in-place until later this year required to increase the tonnage from the primary ore body at Turmalina to meet our previous targets.”
Mr. Titcomb added, “Our plan to reach mid-tier status remains intact. However, we will not be in a position to provide updated production and CAPEX figures until our engineering team completes the review of new technologies that management believes should sharply reduce our capital requirements and lower our operating costs. This analysis will be completed later this fall. Based on our present mine plans, which include the changes in mining methods at Turmalina, feed grades should improve in 2011. Moreover, with the contribution of the Caet� operation, which is ramping-up as anticipated, we estimate 2011 gold production could rise nearly 40% over this year’s revised outlook.”
Jaguar is one of the fastest growing gold producers in Brazil with operations in a prolific greenstone belt in the state of Minas Gerais and has plans to develop the Gurupi Project in northern Brazil in the state of Maranh�o. Jaguar is actively exploring and developing additional mineral resources at its approximate 575,000-acre land base in Brazil.
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