First Majestic Silver reserve update sees higher grades despite fewer tonnes
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian miner First Majestic Silver has published its 2014 mineral reserve and resource estimates for its Mexican assets as at December 31, which saw fewer tonnes but increased grades.
The Vancouver-based company reported that the total silver metal content in the proven and probable reserve categories fell 7% to 101.1-million ounces, down from 108.6-million a year earlier.
Contained silver equivalent ounces fell 10%, as a result of a 23% drop in tonnes, which was slightly offset by a 21% higher silver grade.
First Majestic had also reduced the metal prices used to estimate the 2014 reserves to $20/oz of silver, $1 200/oz of gold, $0.95/lb of lead and $1/lb of zinc.
The company mined 11.7-million ounces of silver last year, which meant that the fact that contained silver ounces decreased by only 7.5-million ounces despite the lower silver price assumption, was attributable to the La Guitarra mine now being included in the reserve estimate, which added 9.4-million ounces of pure silver.
La Encantada saw the most significant decrease in reserves, owing to old tailings being downgraded to inferred resources from the proven and probable reserve categories. However, the underground proven and probable reserves rose by 56% to 3.2-million tonnes, containing 28.4-million ounces of silver at an average grade of 276 g/t.
Partially contributing to the fewer ounces in reserve was the reduction in drilling activity, which saw 25% fewer metres drilled in 2014 than in 2013. First Majestic said it was planning to increase metres drilled this year by 25% by drilling about 50 000 m at its five operating mines.
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