Avino Silver and Gold Mines, www.avino.com – an exploration/production company with a solid 27-year track record at the prolific Avino mine in Mexico (16M oz Ag, 150k oz Au and 25M lb of copper), has been making extensive rehabilitation and modernization at Avino since 2007 with the goal of becoming a multi-million ounce silver producer within 3-5 years. Today the company took the opportunity to update the market and the Company’s shareholders on recent/projected mining and milling operations.
Discovery of the massive vein of high-grade silver in the San Gonzalo zone has made the Avino mine a particularly attractive site and with firmly established logistical infrastructure to support future development, the Company is now poised to generate substantial revenue for shareholders.
The past several months have seen an incredible amount of exciting activity at Avino and a sophisticated 3D map is emerging from the technical data which promises to set silver bugs buzzing:
• October 2010 – Completed processing of copper ore stockpiles, as some 17.5k tonnes, yielding 419 tonnes of concentrate (66% Au, 58% Ag, 56% copper), produced a sale finalized at $1.01668M
• November – Relining of ball mill and conveyor belt changeover in the crushing plant prior to the start of San Gonzalo development material processing, initial rate of 180 tonnes/day maintained until Jan. 14, 2011, during which some 5,896 tonnes yielded 192 tonnes concentrate grading 11.54g/t Au and 3.617g/t Ag (0.78g/t Au and 205g/t Ag feed grade) with minor, yet significant copper/lead/zinc percentages
• January – Early in the month the development for extraction of the targeted 10k tonne bulk sample was finished by mining contactor DMG and the Company is sitting on roughly four solid months of broken ore for mill feed (6,350 tonnes ready for drawdown at main stope 2-140 and 4,700 tonnes stockpiled near the crushing plant)
• Smaller stope to the west can be developed for increased mill input using a cut and fill solution, to the east (towards dill hole SG-07-33 on level 2260) a wide structure with significant potential exists and plans are underway to develop this zone as well
• Regional exploration drilling program commenced Jan. 27 with the initial hole (SG-11-01, completed Jan. 30, 88.75 m) successfully intersecting the San Gonzalo structure
Projected drilling (holes SG-11-02 to 09) will further validate targeted areas of San Gonzalo and help to refine the overall model for mining development (hole locations and other information are available at the Company’s website).
With a circumspect plan to optimize processing conditions and improve recovery rates, and an inventory of some 200 wet tonnes of bulk concentrate on hand, the Company is already taking proposals from a variety of eager parties as 2011 shapes up to be a year of rising precious metal prices, with unprecedented global demand.
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