We own or control a portfolio of around a dozen precious metals projects located in Mexico, Argentina and Nevada (USA).
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Rodeo is a high-grade, open pit gold-silver mine located about 1.5 hours via road from our Velardeña Properties. We began excavation at Rodeo in late 2020 and started gold-silver production in January 2021. The project broke even in its first quarter of production and generated $12.3 million in 2021 net operating margin that can be used in part to fund a startup of production at the larger Velardeña Properties. We completed a drill program in Q4 2021 that has extended the mine life by around six months and we currently estimate Rodeo will operate profitably through Q3 2023.
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The Velardeña Properties contain two underground silver and gold mines and two processing mills. During Q2 2022, we completed limited scale mining activities for use in final optimization of the bio-oxidation plant design and flotation separation studies that will indicate how we can effectively separate the gold-bearing minerals into the pyrite-arsenopyrite concentrate that is proposed for processing in the bio-oxidation circuit. This testing met productivity targets but not dilution targets; therefore, during the remainder of 2022 and into 2023 we are undertaking a development and exploration program prior to proposing a restart of production.
El Quevar is a district-scale, advanced exploration-stage silver project in Salta, Argentina. We announced a positive PEA for Quever in 2018 and have had an ongoing earn-in agreement with Barrick Gold since 2020. Barrick has the opportunity to earn up to a 70% interest by spending $10M+ and completing a Pre-Feasibility study demonstrating a profitable operation with 2M+ AuEq oz within 8 years.
Santa Maria is an underground silver and gold mine with a positive (Sept. 2018) PEA, low capital cost, and a potential source of near-term production. Golden & Fabled Silver Gold Corp. signed an agreement in 2020 giving Fabled an option to purchase Golden's interest in the property for $4M plus a royalty stream. As of August 2022, $2M remains to be paid to Golden, with $1M anticipated in 2022 and the remainder in 2023.
Yoquivo is a district-scale gold-silver exploration project (Chihuahua State, Mexico) with historic high-grade silver production. Our claims cover an underexplored epithermal precious metals district with excellent access in the productive part of the Sierra Madre. We have completed three drill programs as of August 2022, with reported results (Jan. 2022, Feb. 2022, Aug. 2022) indicating the presence of potentially economic grades on several veins in this multi-vein system property. Golden holds an option to purchase 7 concessions that comprise the Yoquivo property, totaling 1,974.8 hectares, for payments totaling $0.75 million over four years and subject to a 2% net smelter return royalty on production, capped at $2 million.
We added the Sarita Este gold-silver prospect in Salta, Argentina and the Sand Canyon gold-silver project in Nevada to our portfolio of properties in 2019. We also own or control additional exploration properties, most of which lie in and around the traditional silver-producing areas in Mexico.
We hold an option to acquire 51% of the Sarita Este concession from Cascadero Minerals Corp. We've completed two successful drill programs at this project (most recently reported in August 2022) and are planning to conduct additional drilling.