On 12 October, Mexican precious metals miner Fresnillo PLC, the world’s largest primary silver producer, trimmed its full-year guidance for silver production by 3 million to 41 million ounces. The revised outlook followed by a 5.80% fall in its silver production in the third quarter as the company reinforced safety conditions at all of its projects following the death of two contractors in July. The company added that it is expecting to resume with the normal operations at the Fresnillo mine by the end of October. However, the company upped its gold production target to 430,000 ounces for the year 2011, from previously estimated 400,000 ounces.
The company faces the high currency risk, any negative movement in currency would lead the company with lower profitability.
The company continues to face s operational risk at its existing mines and execution risk on its growth projects.
Fresnillo reported two fatal accidents occurred in July, involving contractors, one at the Fresnillo Mine and the other at the Centauro Deep Project.
The company is confident to get back to full capacity by the end of October.
Fresnillo reported a 12.2% jump to 919,321 silver ounces under the Peñoles Silverstream Agreement. The increase was attributed to higher mill throughput and increased ore grades at the Sabinas mine.
Year-to-date, the company reported a 21.7% jump in its e gold production to a record 326,245 ounces for the first nine ounces of this year.
The company has shown expanded capacity and improved recovery rates at Soledad-Dipolos and increased volumes of ore processed at Herradura and Saucito.
