The Company is moving forward with the evaluation, design and engineering of a new 2,000 tonne per day sulfide plant. Samuel Engineering has been retained by Golden Minerals to lead the engineering effort. The Company expects that engineering, construction and ramp-up of the new plant would take approximately three years and would require external funding. The planned plant would have an estimated annual production of 4 million ounces of silver, 80,000 ounces of gold and 10 million pounds of each lead and zinc and could be completed by late 2014.
The independent consulting firm of Chlumsky Armbrust and Meyer (CAM) has been retained to provide an updated Canadian National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") compliant resource estimate for Velardeña. As part of updating the resource estimate, CAM is auditing the geologic database and the quality control and quality assurance procedures. The Company expects that the new resource estimate will be completed about year-end 2011.
El Quevar Project
The Company continued evaluation of the El Quevar Project in the Salta Province of northern Argentina during the quarter. As previously reported, a preliminary evaluation of the geologic data from the underground drifting suggests that the deposit may be amenable to bulk mining. This could include a potential open pit on the east and central areas of the Yaxtché zone, along with bulk underground mining in the west Yaxtché zone.
Two drills are currently in operation at El Quevar. The Company has developed an underground drill program for the east and central Yaxtché zones, with a 1,300 meter fan drilling program planned for the next several months. Approximately 30 holes of a planned 50 surface drill hole program have been completed on the west Yaxtché zone to provide infill drill data and additional information for the geologic model. The Company has received results for 13 of the holes, of which 10 holes intersected five or more meters of values exceeding 100 grams per tonne silver. This included drill hole QVD-341 which contained a four meter intercept that averaged 878 grams per tonne silver, and hole QVD-342 which contained a 22 meter intercept that averaged 717 grams per tonne silver. To date, a total of approximately 392 diamond drill holes have been completed at the El Quevar project, of which 260 holes (65,800 meters) have been drilled in the Yaxtché zone.
An updated Canadian National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") compliant mineral resource estimate on El Quevar is being prepared by the independent consulting firm of Pincock, Allen and Holt (PAH). The PAH resource estimate will consider an economic resource from an open pit on the east and central Yaxtché zones and bulk mining by underground methods on the west Yaxtché zone. The updated resource estimate for the El Quevar project is expected about year-end 2011.
IF my numbers are right, this can give 10M once (high grade)/year production (Silver + Eq) = 500M$/year (400M$ net cash flow)
By that time, the PPS should be North of 40$ (With a float of 75M shares, 38M now)
