Acquisition:
2013 / 10 / 04
Agreement:
Royalty
Terms:
2.0% NSR
Cerro Prieto is located approximately 50 km southeast of the town Magdalena de Kino and 150 km northeast of the city of Hermosillo in Sonora, Mexico. Mineralization at Cerro Prieto comprises a mesothermal vein system of moderate depth. This type of deposit lies generally between near surface high grade epithermal gold-silver type deposits and the deeper base metal vein to upper parts of a copper-molybdenum porphyry system.
Past exploration has focused on the El Centro, Union and South Pit zones along a mineralized structurally controlled shear zone, the “Cerro Prieto Shear”, along with a fourth zone, Puma, which is offset from the Cerro Prieto Shear. More recent exploration has identified new gold mineralization in the Esperanzas, Cumbre, Nueva Esperanza and Reyna zones, which are north of the Union zone.
While mining has been recorded as early as 1906 at the Cerro Prieto property, more recently Cerro Prieto is focused on the Esperanzas and Cumbre zones where production is currently underway. The Cerro Prieto mine has been in continuous production since 2013 and the mine has produced over 120,077 ounces of gold as of March 2024, with current production estimated at 11,500 ounces of gold per year.
Recent Activity
October 2024
Recent independent metallurgical testing at the Esperanza and Neuva Esperanza zones demonstrated gold recovery can be significantly improved by optimizing processing methods. The tests indicate that adding cost-effective crushing equipment to reduce crushed rock size and increasing sodium cyanide concentration in the irrigation system would lead to higher gold recoveries. Further, progress continues toward increasing production capacity with installation of primary crusher designed to increase capacity to 2,000 tpd.
