La Colorada Mine Could Become an Underground Mine

Argonaut Gold (Argonaut) announced it has discovered high-grade gold veins at the El Crestón open pit at its La Colorada mine in Sonora, which has demonstrated the mine’s potential to become an underground mine in the future.

Argonaut’s drilling program has intersected several high-grade veins extending below the El Crestón pit. These high-grade zones are deep extensions of  gold veins that are being mined within the open pit and show good lateral continuity along strike.

Among the company’s discoveries are that the “drill hole 20-LCRC-592 intersected 12.2 m at 98.9 g/t Au and 30.3 g/t Ag, including 3.0 m of 383.0 g/t Au and 113.5 g/t Ag and the drill hole 20-LCRC-562 intersected 21.3 m at 44.6 g/t Au and 274.9 g/t Ag, including 3.0 m of 283.1 g/t Au and 858.0 g/t Ag,” reported the company in a press release.

Pete Dougherty, President & CEO of Argonaut, explained that the company has always wanted to drill below the El Crestón open pit to see if it is possible to transition the La Colorada mine from an open pit to an underground mine. Dougherty highlighted that the gold and silver results are very encouraging and as a result, Argonaut will conduct further exploration at depth.

Argonaut reported that the first drill program was focused on testing for down dip extensions of the three main veins within the pit. To further confirm high-grade gold and silver intercepts, the company completed three twin diamond drill core holes to validate the other samples.   

In March, Argonaut announced it increased its Mineral Reserves by 43 percent and its M&I Mineral Resources by 26 percent between 2019 and 2020. The increase was achieved due to the acquisition of Alio Gold Inc, which incremented the mineral reserves net of depletion of the La Colorada mine.

In addition, the company has identified new opportunities to further add more mineralization. “I am extremely proud of our local team's discovery record and look forward to our next steps, as we continue to test the continuity of these high-grade gold and silver veins at depth,” said Brian Arkell, Vice President of Exploration.

In a previous press release, Dougherty said that for 2021, the company is focusing to deliver cash flow from its mining operations to drive the company’s growth as the company transition from “a relatively high-cost junior producer with short mine life assets to a lower-cost producer with long life assets.”

In an interview with MBN, Dougherty highlighted that company strongly believes in Mexico. “Mexico is a good mining jurisdiction. It has the five characteristics we look for: laws and regulations are in place, there is knowledgeable people and a mining culture, geology is propitious, investments are reasonably safe and the mining sector is important to Mexico’s overall economy.”