EL SAUZAL

MINING

The El Sauzal Mine is a conventional open pit operation moving nearly 7.4 million tonnes per year of material.  Ore is mined at an annual rate of 2.1 million tonnes.  Ore is fed through a primary jaw crusher prior to being introduced into a semi-autogeneous grinding mill/ball mill circuit.  Gold recovery is a modified CIL circuit.  A heap leach pad is currently being constructed of spent ore, dry stack tailings for use in recovering lower grade ore starting in mid-2007.