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McEwen second quarter gold production takes a dip

Spring flooding affected gold production at the Black Fox Mine

McEwen Mining Inc. (TSX: MUX) reports consolidated production of 36,216 gold ounces for the second quarter of 2019. It is a slight drop from the 36,959 gold ounces reported the previous years, in the second quarter of 2018.

Silver production for Q2 this year was 850,525 ounces, an increase over the previous year when production of 772,432 silver ounces was reported.

The San José and El Gallo mines, which accounted for 62% our total gold and silver production in Q2, exceeded our targets. Our other two operations, the Gold Bar and Black Fox mines, performed better than in Q1, but below our forecast, said a company news release.

Looking ahead, our production guidance for the year 2019 has been reduced by 6% for gold and is unchanged for silver. On a gold equivalent ounces (GEO) basis, silver is forecast to represent 20% of our 2019 consolidated production of 190,000 GEOs.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner commented: “The big events in Q2 were achieving commercial production at Gold Bar in late May and the high-grade exploration results from the Black Fox properties. Production results in the quarter were mixed. San José and El Gallo, which accounted for 62% of our Q2 production, performed well this quarter. At Gold Bar and Black Fox, we have had our head down and were pushing hard all quarter long. While both mines delivered better production in Q2 than in Q1, we didn’t achieve our forecast numbers. As a result, we have reduced our 2019 production guidance for gold by 6%.”

The company also provided details on some problems at the Black Fox property near Matheson, which produced 9,420 gold ounces in Q2.

Production was adversely affected by water infiltration into the mine due to an unusually heavy spring run-off. In order to protect the main infrastructure of the underground operation, the western part of the mine was allowed to flood temporarily. This action reduced production by limiting access to some areas where Q2 production was planned. As a result, production guidance for 2019 has been reduced from 50,000 to 45,000 gold ounces, said the company release.

Our 2019 exploration budget for the Black Fox Complex is $18 million and includes surface and underground drilling. Drilling started in April and there are currently 10 surface drill rigs and one dedicated underground drill rig actively exploring on the Black Fox and Stock properties.

On May 23, 2019 we released very positive gold drill results from the Black Fox Mine and promising intersections in the Grey Fox Area. We followed up with more high-grade drill result from Grey Fox 147NE Target on July 10, 2019, see news release:

https://www.mcewenmining.com/investor-relations/press-releases/press-release-details/2019/McEwen-Mining-Exploration-Drives-a-Potential-New-Source-of-Production/