Project Overview
The Los Filos gold-silver mine is located 180 km south of Mexico City in the municipality of Eduardo Neri, Guerrero State, Mexico. The operation consists of three open pits (Los Filos, Bermejal and Guadalupe) and two underground mines (Los Filos and Bermejal), with ore from all deposits processed by heap leaching to produce a final gold doré product on site.
Mined ore is allocated to either run-of-mine or crushed ore heap leach facilities, as appropriate. Two heap leach pads are in operation, one for crushed ore and the other for run-of-mine ore. Crushed ore is fully leached after 120 days and run-of-mine ore after 180 days. Pregnant leach solution from the heap leach pads is processed in a conventional adsorption, desorption and recovery (ADR) process plant that also includes an elution circuit, carbon regeneration circuit and gold refinery that produces a gold-silver doré product.
The orebodies at Los Filos consist of iron-gold skarn with minor amounts of copper and silver at the intrusive-limestone contact. Orebodies also occur with endoskarn and are disseminated within the hydrothermally altered intrusive rocks. The mineralogy of the contact orebodies is predominantly iron oxides with gold, in associations with lesser quantities of copper, lead, zinc, and arsenic occurring in carbonates and oxides as well as sulfides.
Equinox Gold is also evaluating the benefits of constructing a larger CIL plant. Engineering and optimization studies related to the CIL plant are underway. This update is expected to allow for conversion of additional ounces from resource to reserve, which would extend the mine life.
Stream Details
| Date of Contract |
15-Oct-04 |
| Term |
25 years |
| Stream |
100% of silver production |
| Upfront Consideration |
$4M |
| Per Unit Production Payment |
$4.60 (annual inflation adjustment based on CPI) |
| Cost Quartile |
Fourth |
For more information on the Los Filos mine, please visit: www.equinoxgold.com (opens in new tab)