Americas Silver Releases Prefeasibility Study for San Rafael Project

Americas Silver Corp. (TSX:USA,OTCQX:USAPF) released its financial and operational results for Q4 2015, as well as the full 2015 year. It also provided an updated resource and reserve estimate for its San Rafael project, along with the results of a prefeasibility study for San Rafael.
Year-end and Q4 2015 highlights include:

• Consolidated production met 2015 guidance for production and all-in sustaining costs[1] of 2.65 million silver ounces and 4.87 million silver equivalent[2] ounces at a by-product cash cost of $12.75 per ounce[3] and an all-in sustaining cost of $17.16 per ounce³ for the year, including fourth quarter production of approximately 600,000 silver ounces and 1.20 million silver equivalent ounces at a by-product cash cost of $14.38 per ounce and an all-in sustaining cost of $18.45 per ounce.
• Revenues of $53.5 million and a net loss of ($19.4) million or ($0.06) cents per share compared to a net loss of ($78.7) million and ($0.39) cents per share for the year ended December 31, 2014, including fourth quarter revenues of $11.4 million and a net loss of ($7.3) million or ($0.02) cents per share compared to a net loss of ($73.5) million or ($0.35) cents per share for the three months ended December 31, 2014. The decrease in net loss is primarily attributable to lower impairment of mining interests and reductions in depletion and amortization, and income tax expense, partially offset by lower net revenue on commodity sales.
• Consolidated guidance for 2016 is 2.5 – 3.0 million silver ounces and 5.0 – 5.6 million silver equivalent ounces at cash costs of $9.00 – $10.00 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of $11.75 – $12.75 per ounce[4].
• The Company’s mineral reserve and resource estimate was updated as of December 31, 2015. Mineral reserves increased 40% from 22.0 million ounces of silver to 31.0 million ounces, primarily as a result of a maiden reserve estimate for the San Rafael property.
• Today, the Company is announcing the pre-feasibility study results on its zinc-silver-lead San Rafael property, part of the Cosalá Operations. The project is expected to produce approximately 5.5 million ounces of silver, 250 million pounds of zinc and 100 million pounds of lead over an initial 5.5 year mine life at negative all-in sustaining costs per silver ounce.
• Cash and cash equivalents of $1.3 million at December 31, 2015 with net working capital of approximately $5.5 million.

Darren Blasutti, president and CEO of Americas Silver, commented:

Throughout 2015, we continued to reduce costs while increasing silver-lead production and mine efficiency. At the end of March, our operations were on track to deliver on our production guidance and cash costs of $9.00 – 10.00 and all-in sustaining costs of $11.75 – 12.75 per ounce for 2016. We are also excited about the results of our San Rafael pre-feasibility study and maiden reserve estimate. At current prices, it has a pre-tax IRR of 27% and attractive economic upside through conversion of the existing resource to reserve, as well as resource addition from exploration once underground access has been established. We are starting small with initial capital estimates of approximately $22 million to get into production. The project is expected to produce 5.5 million ounces of silver, 254 million pounds of zinc and 97 million pounds of lead over an initial reserve life of 5.5 years at negative silver all-in sustaining costs.

Click here to read the full Americas Silver Corp. (TSX:USA,OTCQX:USAPF) press release.