Ready to Go at Pinos

Q: What is your outlook for gold prices?
A: The outlook for gold remains positive. We believe we are at the beginning of this cycle and have confidence that the price of gold will continue its upward trend. This will obviously have a positive effect on our business. We are focusing on financing the construction of our Pinos gold project in Zacatecas before year-end. This will allow us to begin production in 1Q21. If this gold cycle behaves like previous cycles, we should see further increase in the gold price. This positions us very well to take advantage of production at Pinos.
Q: In what stage are the Pinos and Caballo Blanco projects and what is your strategy to develop them?
A: The Pinos project is fully permitted and ready to go to production. We are in a fortunate position in that we already own the processing plant and only need to transport it down to the mine site. We have drilled out an initial resource and have filed a robust Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA). Upon finalizing the project financing of roughly US$14 million, we will begin construction and move forward. We have had fantastic support from the local municipal, state and federal governments. The municipality of Pinos is eager to restart the mine as it has been over 70 years since the last production. They want it and are ready for it.
In Veracruz, we are going to continue with an exploration program and look to develop a multimillion oz resource from the current 600,000oz we have proven to date. Upon construction of Pinos, we may look to another round of financing to recommence our exploration program at Caballo Blanco.  
Q: How does your alliance with Agnico Eagle Mines at Caballo Blanco work and what types of finance are you pursuing?
A: Agnico Eagle acquired roughly 9.97 percent of Candelaria in 2017 with a focus on exploring Caballo Blanco. It has seven highly attractive exploration targets with the potential of adding significant size to its current resource. What we pursue for the Pinos project is a combination of debt and equity. The debt will be a consortium of Mexican banks, including FIFOMI. The equity side will be led by foreign investors. We are trying to focus on finalizing the Pinos financing and get it into construction as soon as possible. After that we will focus on financing for Caballo Blanco.