Each one in plain English, with the numbers worked through for a shareholder.
31 July 2012joint venture update▲ Good
Gave Endeavour Silver an option over up to 75% of the 91.7-hectare Laberinto property in Durango, for up to US$200,000 of option payments over four years and up to US$3 million of exploration spending, with a joint venture to follow. Someone else pays to explore a small non-core property while Avino concentrates on getting San Gonzalo into production.
The amended Tetra Tech technical report on the whole Avino property, effective 24 July 2012 - the fourth revision of a report first drafted in June, produced under the British Columbia regulator's review of Avino's resource disclosure. It covers the oxide tailings resource and study plus the sulphide tailings, San Gonzalo and Elena Tolosa as targets.
The British Columbia regulator issued a cease trade order after its review of Avino's resource disclosure, which had already forced a clarification and retraction in May 2012 and which the company compounded by leaving a presentation carrying a global resource estimate on its website. An amended technical report has been filed with the regulator. Every resource number Avino published before this point should be read against this.
The Tetra Tech Wardrop tailings retreatment report itself, effective 12 March 2012, filed to support the March announcement. The row's title was taken from the author's consent letter; the substance is the 16MB technical report.
More Elena Tolosa results in the same vein: 76 g/t silver, 0.29 g/t gold and 1.0% copper over 30.8 metres. Two consecutive holes of about 30 metres confirm that the main Avino vein below level 12 is a wide, moderate-grade target rather than a narrow one.
The first 2012 hole into the Elena Tolosa zone cut 142 g/t silver over 28.8 metres - far wider than anything at Guadalupe or San Gonzalo. It tests the main Avino vein below level 12, abandoned in 2001 on low metal prices and the closure of a key smelter, and follows a February 2012 agreement letting Avino mine the main vein again. The company cites a historic, non-compliant figure of 1,681,253 tons at 100 g/t silver, 0.92 g/t gold and 0.63% copper left behind at closure.
Reissued the tailings study release two days later, correctly labelling it a preliminary economic assessment and setting out that the resource covers both oxide and sulphide tailings with only the oxide portion assessed. The correction matters: the company's resource disclosure was already under review by the British Columbia Securities Commission.
Tetra Tech Wardrop's updated study on retreating the old Avino tailings put the pre-tax net present value at US$38.2 million at an 8% discount, a 60% internal rate of return and a 1.5-year payback, at a 1,370 tonne-a-day facility and long-term prices of US$1,271 gold and US$20.59 silver. Reprocessing waste is cheap growth for a company with little cash.
San Gonzalo drilling returned 6.21 g/t gold and 996 g/t silver over 2.05 metres in hole SG-11-12, with a 0.45-metre section at 2,441 g/t silver. Forty holes have now been drilled on the zone, which would become Avino's first mine back in production.
Sold the last of the 2011 copper concentrate, grading about 2.2 kg per tonne silver and 25 g/t gold, produced from stockpiles left over from earlier mining of the Avino vein. Seven or eight truckloads remain to be delivered to Manzanillo, with provisional payment expected in late December - a company still living off old stockpiles rather than a running mine.
Drilling at the Guadalupe zone near Durango returned narrow but rich silver-lead-zinc intercepts: 451 g/t silver with 6.4% lead and 11.5% zinc over 1.35 metres in GPE-11-15, and 363 g/t silver over 0.95 metres inside a 2.30-metre intercept in GPE-11-14. Widths are around a metre, so this is vein-scale material rather than anything bulk-mineable.
Sold the first 200 tonnes of bulk concentrate from the San Gonzalo sample to MRI Trading, grading about 12 kg per tonne silver and 30 g/t gold. The 10,000-tonne programme finishes in early April, after which the feed grades, metallurgy and smelter returns decide whether commercial production goes ahead; the target is a sustained 250 tonnes a day. Wardrop has also been engaged to update the 2006 tailings study.
About 10,000 tonnes have been mined and stockpiled from two San Gonzalo stopes above the 2260 level as part of the bulk sample, with roughly 1,500 tonnes left, and the mill has started processing it. Back-of-stope channel samples returned up to 4,576 g/t silver and 9.09 g/t gold over 0.65 metres, and a new stope is being opened towards a 2007 hole that cut 141 g/t silver over 6.55 metres.
12 Nov 2010capital raising announcement▲ GoodMajor
Closed a C$3.0 million non-brokered private placement, 2,400,000 units at C$1.25 each carrying a three-year warrant at C$1.52, with Sprott Asset Management taking part. No commission was paid. It funds the San Gonzalo bulk sample and development.
What it means for a shareholder
2.4m new shares at C$1.25 to raise about C$3.0m. Shares on issue before the raise aren't in the record, so the dilution can't be worked out.
Development on two levels at San Gonzalo intersected both the main vein and a splay, broke into the old workings to the northwest, and returned channel samples up to 5,522 g/t silver and 1.30 g/t gold over 0.80 metres. Stope preparation for production is about to start on the San Gonzalo 1 vein.
A 4-by-4 metre decline reached the San Gonzalo vein on schedule and on budget after four months, and drifting northwest and southeast has exposed the vein over 25 metres of strike. Channel samples across true widths of 1.45 to 3.15 metres returned 167 to 498 g/t silver with about 0.8 to 2.2 g/t gold - the underground development that turned San Gonzalo from a drill target into a mine.
First ten holes into the ET zone of the main Avino vein, which the company mined for gold, silver and copper from 1975 until 2001. Hole ET-07-01 cut 77.3 metres of Avino vein down-hole, with a significant 5.1-metre section at 114 g/t silver and 0.84% copper. Two rigs are turning, one on ET and one on other targets, with San Gonzalo results reported separately.
Wardrop's first technical study of reprocessing the old Avino tailings, dated March 2006 - the beginning of a project the company would still be studying eighteen years later, when it finally reached prefeasibility in 2024.