ELKO — The Jerritt Canyon mine saw an increase of ounces of gold produced in the second quarter of 2012, despite facing a financial loss, according to a report released by the Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp. on Thursday.
Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp. is a growing mid-tier gold producer in North America that operates in geopolitically stable jurisdictions. The Jerritt Canyon gold mine, located 50 miles north of Elko, is the company’s primary asset. Recently, redevelopment of the Jerritt Canyon mining and milling facility has been the company’s main focus.
The company recorded a loss of $8.3 million by the end of the quarter on June 30, which is compared to the $22.9 million net income in the second quarter of 2011. Yukon-Nevada’s gross loss for this quarter was $3.1 million, an increase from the $1.9 million lost in the second quarter of last year.
The financial loss is mainly due to technical malfunctions of the bucket elevator, which cost the company approximately eight days of significant downtime in April and 10 days in May, according to Senior Director Richard Moritz.
A piece of machinery for the bucket elevator caused numerous shutdowns and was entirely replaced with two conventional belt conveyors by July 11. Yukon-Nevada immediately saw an increase in the operation’s reliability and performance.
“We’re underway,” Moritz said. “We’ve certainly had our struggles, but everything is working 100 percent now.”
In addition to the new belt conveyors, Yukon-Nevada also completed necessary cabling work for the SSX-Steer operation and received more equipment for underground mining: two underground trucks, a drill jumbo and a bolter.
These improvements to operations have accelerated production past the results of this year’s first financial quarter.
“With the replacement of the chain on the bucket elevator in early May, the milling operations were also able to operate consistently at 4,000 tons per day and from mid-May to mid-June averaged 4,112 tons per day,” Yukon-Nevada stated in a report released Tuesday.
The Jerritt Canyon Mill operation produced 25,249 payable ounces of gold, compared to the 19,407 ounces produced in last year’s second quarter. The company also processed higher grade or from both the Smith and SSX mine, rather than the lower grade stockpile and ore processed last year.
“Second quarter mining production was 28,151 tons higher than the first quarter of 2012,” the report stated. “June production for the Smith mine averaged 1,250 tons per day while the SSX-Steer mine averaged 705 tons per day.”
Yukon-Nevada expects this rapid growth of Jerritt Canyon to continue on into the third quarter, reaching a goal of 1,200 tons a day.