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Golden Minerals is a junior silver producer with a strong growth profile, listed on both the NYSE Amex and TSX.

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Message: more info from ECU meeting

more info from ECU meeting

posted on Jun 06, 2009 08:30AM

I will try to anwser your questions Edgy.

1/ The 1.2 million silver eq. ounces is the planned production from the run of mine material for the oxide mill and I stated the 40 ounces per day of gold was in addition. It may actually be higher over the first year as there are over 12,000 tonnes of stockpiled gold pyrite con right now and the sulphide mill is running the tailings pile material which should produce another 30,000 tonnes approximately over the next 8-10 months before switching back to processing sulphide material from the mine. This processing of the gold pyrite con requires the operation of the roaster which is just about ready, I believe the last adjustment is a larger fan and this should be done within a week or so. It's also possible that at some point in the coming months that the small mill will be used to process the tailings instead of the sulphide mill but this would require the zinc and lead prices continue to improve and increase the revenue potential of zinc and lead cons. These zinc and lead prices are now getting closer again to a good return level.

Originally it was planned to run the gold pyrite con material after roasting in a separate tank system that exists at the oxide mill but the company through addition testing of this material has found better recoveries by blending it with run of mine material. The company is also seriously looking at adding a flotation circuit to the oxide mill to capture any sulphide associated gold and silver (which there is in our oxides) which will improve gold/silver recoveries to close to 85-90%, a very good number. This is very cheap and the space exists.

The 40 ounces per day gold production from the gold pyrite con is what 50 tonnes per day of gold pyrite con production produces after processing through the roaster and oxide mill. The sulphide mill when running sulphide materials at the rate of about 320 tpd produces this 50 tpd of gold pyrite con which contains 22 gms gold and 150 gms silver per tonne which in turn is about 24 gms of gold eq. which means about $36,000 US dollars per day which is about $10 million US dollars per year just from gold pyrite conc.

To summarize sources of revenue:

- ECU is processing oxide materials now – 1.2 million ounces silver eq. per year

- ECU will be processing gold pyrite at a minimum rate of 50 tonnes per day through the oxide mill when the roaster process is ready – 40 ounces gold per day

- ECU will enhance recoveries with a flotation circuit – probably a 10-15 % enhancement on run of mine material revenue

- ECU will re-start the sulphide production after the tailings are completed unless it makes sense to do so sooner due to lead and zinc prices recovery and use the little mill to complete the tailing processing, this will add a lead and zinc con with significant silver content to the revenue stream – depending on prices could be anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million per month

- company will increase production to 500 tpd and then move higher to 700 tpd and over time to over 1000 tpd at the oxide mill

2/ The company can not talk about revenues until they are produced due to regulatory restriction of the AMF regulators in Quebec. The company is classified a junior exploration company and that is the main reason why the financials were re-stated last year. So even though ECU is clearly a producer without a completed economic study it is not allowed to forecast. This means no forecasts until the economic study is complete which is ongoing or re-classification. This is why the company is not shouting from the roof tops but fortunately this stuff can be figured out approximately with some time and work. The company would love nothing better than to be shouting about the projected revenue stream. As I mentioned in my first post there are no shortages of those bidding on our dore as the quality is very good.

3/ The meeting was not taped for broadcast but this was discussed for future years. The attendance was less than last year and there were not many faces I didn’t know so only a handful of retail investors were in attendance. I was told by Compushare reps that low turn-outs have been very common this year. Major D was indeed present and actively working the room for information. And yes the company did hand out an ECU one ounce silver commemorative coin to those who took the time to attend, it was very much appreciated. This helps to focus the mind on the fact the company is indeed entering a new era and my expectation is they will be as successful a producer as they have been an explorer and both will grow substantially in the near and longer term future.

4/ Management was very upbeat and happy about progress this year. Steve presented the new corporate branding image that has started which will become more evident as the year progresses. Besides a new look the focus has been shifted to provide equal billing for production and revenue as exploration success. It seems production and revenue has become as important as exploration success in this new world and management has responded.

5/ The company is very anxious to get back to the massive sulphide exploration targets for which only the tip has been revealed. This will happen when they are satisfied with all mill operations and mine stope development, hopefully end of summer or early fall. The top priority right now remains to optimize operations of the 2 mills and new stopes before taking some manpower to focus elsewhere and I think this is prudent

6/ The company now has over 400 employees so the resources exist to continue production and exploration development. A question was raised at the meeting by a shareholder I didn’t know about the 1 billion ounce resource potential and management outlined how much the ECU resource has grown over the last 3 years and that they expect this to continue based on the modeling and present thinking. Steve showed a slide showing how much the ECU resource has grown over the last 3 years with only 3-4 drills working part time versus our peer group and in particular MAG Silver which has had at least 15 drills working most of the time and the ECU results blew them all away. This slide showed there is no contest between ECU and their so called peer group. Of course MAG has been very well funded and never had to allocate tight resources as has ECU.

7/ Steve also talked about the great infrastructure available in the area of Valardena and the companies commitment to major production expansion through a new larger mill and or mill acquisition but wouldn’t elaborate further. It was clear to those present that shareholders can expect major increases in production capacity going forward.

8/ If anyone has any additional questions I will try to answer them, if I can, over the next few days.

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