Golden Minerals starts operations at Velardena Silver-Gold Properties

Golden Minerals Company is pleased to announce that on December 18, 2023, it began silver-gold mining operations at its Velardena Properties, located in Durango State, Mexico. The company has begun mining in six stopes and is steadily ramping up daily production to reach a rate of approximately 150 tonnes per day in March, and ultimately a full production rate of approximately 325 tpd in the second quarter. The restart of mining operations follows the company’s announcement in November 2023 that it had also begun producing gold-rich pyrite flotation concentrates from Velardena. The concentrates come from material that has been stockpiled at the Velardena Properties since the fourth quarter of 2015, when the mines were last operational. At that point, mining activities were suspended when a combination of low metals prices, mining dilution and metallurgical challenges rendered operations unprofitable. The company elected to preserve the asset for future use, and since that time has evaluated a number of mining methods and processing alternatives that could enable sustainable profitable operations. The December 2023 restart of mining represents the culmination of that work. The company anticipates continuing to produce the pyrite concentrates until such time that mine production can sustain continuous operation of the flotation plant to produce the three concentrates, lead-silver, zinc, and pyrite-gold from newly mined material.