Yamana to Suspend Ramp Up at C1 Santa Luz Project

Yamana Gold Inc. (TSX:YRI,NYSE:AUY) released an update on its Brazil-based C1 Santa Luz and Pilar projects, commenting that production hit a record in August. The company also said that it has decided to temporarily suspend ramp-up activities at C1 Santa Luz.

As quoted in the press release:

[T]he Company has been working to improve the rate of recovery from the carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit at C1 Santa Luz , which to date has been lower than designed, and, in particular, the Company has been dealing with a significant carbon content in the ore which has had the effect of suppressing gold recovery. After careful and extensive review, and having allowed a sufficient period of time for optimization efforts, the Company has concluded that the optimal plan for C1 Santa Luz would be to temporarily suspend ramp-up activities, and put the project on care and maintenance while several identified alternative metallurgical processes are evaluated.

The decision to temporarily suspend ramp-up activities at C1 Santa Luz and put it on care and maintenance is consistent with the Company’s focus on maximizing cash flow rather than production only and protects the significant inventory of mineral resources that that would otherwise likely be lost permanently to tailings with the current recovery levels. In so doing, the potential future viability of the project is preserved as that inventory is profitably mined and recovered utilizing one of the metallurgical processes that will be implemented once the evaluation process is completed.

Click here to read the full Yamana Gold Inc. (TSX:YRI,NYSE:AUY) press release.