EMX Royalty talks production at Rawhide mine in Nevada
2020-07-28 09:59 ET - News Release
Mr. David Cole reports
EMX ROYALTY PROVIDES RAWHIDE GOLD-SILVER MINING OPERATION INVESTMENT UPDATE
EMX Royalty Corp. has provided an update on its equity interest in the Rawhide gold-silver mine in Nevada via its 19.9-per-cent ownership in Rawhide Acquisition Holding LLC (RAH), a privately held Delaware company that owns the mining operation. RAH advised the Company that for the six months ending on June 30, 2020, a total of 11,159 ounces of gold and 85,034 ounces of silver have been sold for total revenue of approximately US$17.7 million. This year's production has been sourced from the recently commissioned Regent open pit, which was permitted by RAH in early 2019 and put into production shortly thereafter. The Regent operations are located approximately three kilometers northwest of the Rawhide open pits, where much of the historic mining in the district took place.
RAH also advised that production at Rawhide-Regent is accelerating after recently receiving air quality permits that allowed for expansion of the crushing systems. The timing of this advancement poises RAH to ramp up production through the coming months, and to take advantage of increasingly favorable precious metal market conditions.
RAH has commissioned an independent resource estimate and technical report for the project according to CIM guidelines and NI 43-101 requirements. The report is expected to be delivered in Q3.
Overview of the Rawhide Operations
The Rawhide operations occur in Nevada's Walker Lane gold-silver belt, amidst multiple historic mines that produced more than one million ounces of gold (Comstock, Round Mountain, Borealis and Tonopah). The Rawhide mine was previously operated as a subsidiary of Kennecott Corp. prior to Coral Reef Capital, a private equity firm, partnering with the Rawhide mine management team to acquire the property from Rio Tinto Plc in 2010. EMX made the investment in the Rawhide operations in late 2019, guided by the Company's strategy of acquiring interests in near-term cash flowing assets.
Gold was discovered at Rawhide in 1906, with intermittent small-scale production until Kennecott undertook open pit mining from 1990 to 2003, producing 1.4 million ounces of gold and 10.9 million ounces of silver[2]. Residual heap leaching until 2010 recovered an additional 188 thousand ounces of gold and 1.9 million ounces of silver. From 2011-2019 RAH produced 189 thousand ounces of gold and 2.1 million ounces of silver.
Gold-silver mineralization at Rawhide has been historically mined from a series of low sulfidation epithermal veins, vein swarms and replacement zones hosted by various basaltic to rhyolitic volcanic units. The lower grade bulk tonnage mineralization that is the focus of current operations occurs between structures within permeable volcanic units and at intrusive contacts.
Comments on Technical Information
The foregoing technical information regarding the Rawhide operation has been provided to EMX by RAH. EMX has verified such information and believes it to be reliable and relevant. EMX's assessment of RAH's Rawhide and Regent open pit operations has included field assessments and review of internal reports authored by RAH and its consultants. EMX's Rawhide investment is not considered to be material to the Company.
Qualified Person
Dr. Eric P. Jensen, CPG, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and employee of the Company, has reviewed, verified and approved the above technical disclosure contained in this news release.
About EMX Royalty Corp.
EMX Royalty is a precious and base met