Silver Miners Reported Production Notes
The precious metal miner Fresnel reported a record production of silver and gold in the second quarter, driven by its mines Suction and Soledad-Dipoles in Mexico at a time when the price of the yellow metal traded at record highs.
The total production of silver, including that provided by the agreement Silver stream, rose 7.2 percent, to 11.4 million ounces, while gold production jumped 20.6 percent to, 110 000 070 ounces. Excluding Silver stream, the Mexican mining produced 10.5 million ounces of silver.
Numbs Corp analysts expect production to be stable in the first quarter with 9.1 million ounces of silver, excluding Silver stream, and 96 000 ounces of gold.
Shares in mining in London rose 2.4 percent at 13:11 GMT.
“In the second quarter we continued to focus on operational discipline and cost reduction initiatives, while our exploration program remained on track with encouraging results in several projects,” said the chief executive of mining, Jaime Lamely.
Gold prices rose to a record on Thursday, extending gains for the ninth consecutive day, after Moody’s warned that the U.S. could lose the “AAA” rating for its debt, and the possibility of more monetary stimulus Reserve Federal and deepening of the debt crisis in Europe.
“One thing that is driving the price of gold and silver investment demand is the macroeconomic conditions and see the world in such a way that promotes investment in gold and silver,” said Arturo Espanola, director of investor relations Fresnel in a conference call.
The price of silver rose for the third consecutive day. Silver is often more volatile than gold and fell so sharply in May that is a little away from its historic high.
Fresnel in 2011 expects to produce about 44 million ounces of silver, including Silver stream, and 400 thousand ounces of gold.
The miner expects a rapid increase in production at its newly opened Suction mine in central Mexico, along with other expansion plans, may help overcome BHP Billiton as the world’s largest producer of silver.
BHP Billiton is currently producing more silver as a byproduct of other metals. BHP produced 45.4 million oz of silver in the year to June 2010.