Magna Gold declares commercial production at San Francisco mine

The newest mine will produce approximately 6,000 oz. gold per month in the third quarter and 7,500 oz. per month in the fourth quarter.

To achieve commercial production, Magna completed pre-stripping the mine to give it a 2.9:1 strip ratio, and that number is expected to trend downwards through the mine life. New leach pads were built, and fresh ore is being stacked at a rate of 900 tonnes per hour. The grind size and leach kinetics have been optimized to improve recovery rates to about 70%. The project achieved over 3.5 million person-hours without a lost-time incident.

The pre-feasibility study done last year, estimated the San Francisco mine has measured and indicated resources of 99.7 million tonnes grading 0.45 g/t gold, containing 1.4 million oz., and inferred resources of 11.4 million tonnes at 0.45 g/t gold, containing 171,000 oz.