Exploration projects

Inmaculada

During the first quarter of the year, the team carried out 4,051m of drilling for potential in the Tesoro, Nicolas, Andrea, Josefa, Rita, Split Josefa, Laura, and Split JNE vein structures with the key results coming from the Tesoro and Nicolas veins. In the second quarter, the Company expects to complete five remaining drill holes (approximately 2,500m of drilling) before commencing 11,000m of resource drilling in the Tesoro and Nicolas veins.

Royropata

Although it is outside the permitted area and will require approximately three years to receive the necessary government approvals, the size of the resource is already over 700,000 gold equivalent ounces with significant exploration upside. We are confident that this new zone will be the future of mining in the area in the medium to long term, despite the recent necessity to place Pallancata on temporary care and maintenance.

The existing discovery is expected to continue to grow with the Company targeting a doubling of resources of similar quality. The key metrics for the existing resources are detailed on this page, to the right.

San Jose

In 2023, the brownfield team at San Jose carried out 906m of potential drilling and 4,420m of resource drilling in the Suspiro, Sigmoid Molle, Guadaluoe veins with the key vein expected to be the Suspira quartz sulphide vein which has high silver grades.

The plan for the first quarter of 2024 is to perform 1,500m of potential drilling at San Jose in the Telken North and Cerro Saavedra areas.

Arcata

The 100%-owned Arcata unit is located in the Department of Arequipa in southern Peru, on a 47,000 hectare site, at an altitude of 4,600 metres above sea level. First concentrate was poured in 1964.

The Arcata underground mine is conformed by vein systems where the epithermal vein deposits are of an intermediate sulphidation type with predominant silver values and variable quantities of gold and base metals. The known structures extend over 29km. The veins are mined by conventional and mechanised cut-and-fill breast or overhand stoping methods utilising timber support. The plant at Arcata produced silver/gold bulk concentrate by flotation.

The mine was placed on temporary care and maintenance in February 2019.

Ares

The Ares underground mine is located in the district of Orcopampa, department of Arequipa, on a site covering an area of 22,700 hectares at an altitude of 4,900 ASL. The unit consists primarily of an underground mine and a processing plant where a Merrill-Crowe leaching process using a standard cyanidation technique is employed to produce Dore. The Group discovered the Ares mine, which it fully owns, in 1988 with underground exploration commencing in 1993. The mine was commissioned into production in 1998 and had operating capacity of 1,000 tonnes per day. Extraction of mineral and production at Ares closed in the second quarter of 2014.