Hochschild Mining posts lower output in Q1, advances various development efforts
British silver and gold miner Hochschild Mining has made a solid start to its financial year, with a strong operational performance recorded by its flagship Inmaculada mine, in Peru.
The company is also making strides at a turnaround programme underway at Mara Rosa, in Brazil, with continued improvements having been made in plant and filtering operations.
The company is on track to meet its full-year guidance and advance engineering work on the Monte Do Carmo gold project, in Brazil, where the company targets project approval and start of construction in the third quarter.
Additionally, Hochschild continues to advance an environmental-impact study on the Royropata silver project in Peru.
In the first quarter of the year, Hochschild reported 55 252 oz of attributable gold production and 1.6-million ounces of attributable silver production, which both decreased from 58 000 oz and 1.8-million ounces, respectively, in the same quarter last year.
In turn, gold-equivalent production decreased from 81 000 oz to 75 600 oz in the reporting quarter, while silver-equivalent production decreased from 6.2-million to 5.8-million ounces. All the reductions are in line with expectations.
Hochschild maintains its full-year guidance of between 300 000 and 328 000 gold equivalent ounces.
The company had a net cash balance of $95-million at the end of March, compared with net debt of $22.7-million.
