Shares in Mexico-focused precious metals miner Fresnillo (LON:FRES) took a hit Wednesday after the company said it expected a decline in silver output in 2019.<\/p>\n
The company, which is the world’s largest primary silver producer and Mexico’s No.2 gold miner, posted record silver production<\/a>, and strong\u00a0gold\u00a0output in 2018, despite it being a \u201cchallenging year\u201d for the company.<\/p>\n Delivering production figures<\/a> for the three months and full year ended in December, the miner said annual silver production was 61.8 million ounces, up 5.3% on 2017, thanks mainly to the first full year of operations at San Juli\u00e1n.<\/p>\n Quarterly production of the grey metal, however, remained flat compared to the third-quarter of 2018 and down 3.2% year-on-year due to lower volumes of ore processed and ore grade at both Fresnillo and Saucito mines.<\/p>\n The company churned out 923,000 ounces of gold last year, up 1.3% from 2017, due mainly to higher ore grade and recovery rate at Saucito, the contribution of the new\u00a0Pyrites plant\u00a0at that mine and higher ore grade at\u00a0Fresnillo.<\/p>\n \u201cRecord annual silver production and a very strong gold performance does not mask what was a challenging year for Fresnillo,\u201d chief executive officer Octavio Alv\u00eddrez said in the statement<\/a>. \u201cWe are taking action to address [the lower than expected ore grades at the Fresnillo and Saucito mines which have persisted into the final quarter], not least by intensifying our infill drilling programmes, controlling dilution and further investment in equipment and infrastructure,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, Fresnillo said it expects silver production this year to be between 58 million and 61 million ounces, which would represent a slight fall on that achieved in 2018. Gold production is anticipated to be flat year-on-year, in the range of 910,000 to 930,00 ounces.<\/p>\n The company said it will have an exploration budget this year of $140 million, including capitalized exploration expenses.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile 2018 was a challenging year at Fresnillo, we remain both confident and determined we will return the mine to the positive trend seen in previous years,\u201d Alv\u00eddrez said.<\/p>\n Shares in the company were down 1.2% in London at 901.67 pence each on Wednesday by 2:53pm. They had hit a low of 892.20p at 8:10 am local time.<\/p>\n The post Fresnillo\u2019s 2018 silver output hit record high, to be lower this year<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The miner, the world’s largest primary silver producer and Mexico’s No. 2 gold company, expects production of the grey metal to fall this year to between 58 and 61 million ounces.<\/p>\n The post Fresnillo’s 2018 silver output hit record high, to be lower this year<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1173,404,369],"tags":[48,71,76,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1095782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1095783,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095782\/revisions\/1095783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1095782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1095782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1095782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fresnillo said it was taking action to address lower than expected ore grades at its Fresnillo and Saucito mines, which persisted in the final quarter of 2018.<\/q><\/p>\n