Timmins Gold starts commercial production at San Francisco mine in Mexico

Timmins Gold Corp (TSX-V: TMM) announced that commercial gold production begun as of the start of April 2010 at its wholly owned San Francisco open pit gold mine located in northern Sonora, Mexico.

Mining rates and process plant throughput have steadily built up during the commissioning phase and are now exceeding budget and plan by almost 10 percent, it said in a statement. Management is confident that the operation will achieve the previously announced annual gold production rate for 2010 of 80,000 ounces of gold.

The life of mine cash cost is projected at approximately US$412 per ounce.
Focused solely in Mexico, Timmins Gold is now in commercial gold production at the San Francisco mine, a past-producing open pit heap leach operation.

Last month it confirmed the potential to expand the total resource at San Francisco. Timmins had focused on moving the project into production, while also looking at adding additional resources outside of the existing pit. It said in mid-March that some 6,750 meters of reverse circulation (RC) drilling (85 holes) had confirmed that the in-pit mineralization extended along strike to the north-west of the main gold structure.

“The results of the drill program show that the gold mineralization continues NW for at least 200 meters beyond the currently planned pit limit and includes multiple intersections of gold mineralization consistent with the width and grade of mineralization which is contained within the San Francisco pit and which is included in the current mine plan,” Timmins noted last month, adding it expects to report an updated resource estimate in April.

As part of Timmins’ ongoing exploration at San Francisco, an additional 50,000 meters of RC drilling, which will focus both on infill and step-out drilling, will be undertaken.

http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/6318/timmins-gold-starts-commercial-production-at-san-francisco-mine-in-mexico-6318.html