Endeavour’s Q1 Silver Output Higher than Expected

Endeavour Silver Corp. (TSX:EDR,NYSE:EXK) announced its production results for the first quarter of 2015, noting that silver production came in at 1,820,050 ounces, while gold output came to a total of 15,808 ounces. Meanwhile, silver equivalent production came to 2.9 million ounces using a 70:1 ratio between silver and gold.

Silver production is ahead of schedule for the year, but the company’s output of both metals came in lower than it did during the first quarter of 2014.

Further production highlights include:

• Silver production decreased 4% to 1,820,050 oz
• Gold production decreased 15% to 15,808 oz
• Silver equivalent production decreased 8% to 2.9 million oz (at a 70:1 silver: gold ratio)
• Silver oz sold up 21% to 1,861,975 oz
• Gold oz sold down 4% to 15,799 oz
• Bullion inventory at quarter-end included 349,277 oz silver and 1,073 oz gold
• Concentrate inventory at quarter-end included 65,677 oz silver and 933 oz gold

Bradford Cooke, CEO of Endeavour, commented:

We did not forecast any production growth in 2015 so we are pleased with the performance of our operations in the First Quarter. Our two main themes in operations this year are the ramp up of mine output at El Cubo to 2200 tonnes per day (tpd) and the ramp down of mine output at Bolanitos to 1000 tpd, both of which are now under way.

El Cubo plant throughput averaged 1,540 tpd in Q1, 2015, up 12% from 1,374 tpd in Q4, 2014. The proposed additional 650 tpd of mine production at El Cubo will come primarily from the V-Asunción mine area, which has thicker mineralized zones amenable to long hole mining, and the Santa Cecilia mine area, which has narrower but higher grade veins, and will be processed at Endeavour’s Bolañitos plant, located 18 kilometres away, which has available capacity and comparable circuits to El Cubo.

Our 2015 exploration programs commenced last week at the three operating mines as well as at our emerging new Terronera discovery (formerly known as San Sebastián) in Jalisco State. We plan to release a preliminary economic assessment for a small, high grade mine at the Terronera project this quarter while we continue to explore and prepare a pre-feasibility study for release later this year.

Click here to read the full Endeavour Silver Corp. (TSX:EDR,NYSE:EXK) press release.