The International Resource Journal: Minefinders

Minefinders
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admin on 24 February, 2010 10:41:00
 
Founded in 1994, Minefinders is a precious metals mining and exploration
company. Headquartered in British Columbia, Canada, the company’s
portfolio is focused in Mexico, where Minefinders has been involved in
full-scale minerals exploration since early 1995. Over the past 15 years, the
company has discovered 3 million ounces of gold and 165 million ounces of silver
resource. And Minefinders’ sees its ongoing exploration as having the
potential to contribute new multi-million ounce deposits to the resource base.
Presently, the company has a few projects in various stages of development. The
flagship of the operation, however, is the Dolores Mine, which recently began
production of gold and silver in November of 2008. “Dolores is our success
story,” says Mark Bailey, President and CEO, who has seen the mine develop
from grassroots exploration right through to its first full year in production.
“It’s a large and well-defined deposit, and its open-pit mine life
should last approximately 15 years.”
According to current calculations, the Dolores Mine should produce more than 1.7
million ounces of gold and 64.4 million ounces of silver over its lifecycle.
However, there is potential to increase production by increasing high-grade
recoveries—through adding a mill and expanding the mine to an underground
operation, accessing deep, high-grade gold-silver mineralization below the open
pit.
Additional properties
Besides Delores—which is the only deposit in production—Minefinders
has another promising property called the LaBolsa Resource, a smaller deposit
that has about 208,000 ounces of gold and 2 million ounces of silver. The
company just completed a prefeasibility study on LaBolsa, which will be coming
out soon. “It’s well defined and has excellent expansion
potential,” says Bailey. “We have three others. La Virginia, a
high-grade, gold-silver system due for drilling at the end of this quarter. The
other two, Planchas de Plata and Real Viejo, should begin drilling by the fall
of this year. All are located in Mexico’s Sonora State.”
Minefinders is lucky to have a great team leading the charge. “We have a
lot of great geologists, engineers and operators onsite. We now have 300
employees at the mine and most are very experienced and technical. Almost all of
us are in the profession; we’re not loaded with lawyers and
brokers”, or other personnel not familiar with exploration.
Bailey himself is a professional geologist with a Master degree. He has been in
the industry for 34 years and has been involved in Minefinders since 1994, and
President since 1995. “The discoveries in Mexico were projects I was
involved in from the beginning, and they will be successful because of hard work
and luck.  We have put a lot into this project, mapping and sampling up until
our first drill hole in 1996—that was a discovery hole—and since
then we have drilled over a thousand holes equalling 20,000 metres of drilling
to define the project.” Clearly, Bailey and his team have the wherewithal
to bring Minefinders’ projects to the next level.
Mining in Mexico
Bailey is positive about mining in Mexico. “The Mexican government is
supportive of mining, because it understands the significance of the investment
we make there,” he says. “Mining operations result in more
infrastructure, new jobs and local wealth. While various states have different
levels of support, it has been a good environment for us, overall—on the
management side and on the geology side.”
It seems Minefinders came to Mexico at the right time. Up until 1992, foreign
companies couldn’t own more than 49 per cent of a property in Mexico.
Before then, Mexican resources were largely unexplored. When those restrictions
were overturned, the bull rush began and that’s when Minefinders showed
up. “Relatively speaking, [Mexico] is a fairly new area for exploration,
with significant geology potential,” Bailey continues.
As for cutting environmental corners in a foreign country, Bailey dismantles
that rumour quickly. “The standards are in Mexico as they are in
Canada,” he states. “You don’t go down there to escape
regulations. Mexico has regulatory agencies that come onsite and inspect our
operations. There’s no advantage to being in a foreign country. The
government is conscious of environmental implications; everything is reported
and monitored.”
Staying put
In the long term, Minefinders is open to branching out into different areas
countries. “We have looked at mining in eastern Canada (particularly in
Ontario and Quebec),” Bailey says, “but we haven’t been able
to acquire anything there yet. Minefinders is also interested in South American
countries, such as Peru. The only places we are not interested in mining is
anywhere overseas. It’s too difficult for a small company to operate
projects across the ocean in different time zones. We will stay in the
Americas.”
In the meantime, Minefinders is happy to continue development in Mexico.
“This is where we have put our energy and hard work,” adds Bailey.
“And it’s also been where we have had our best success. We have just
completed one year of production at Dolores. We’re generating good revenue
and are planning to add a mill.”
As for the other sites, Minefinders hopes to start production at LaBolsa very
soon. “We’re also looking for acquisitions in addition to advancing
our grassroots projects. Our goal is to become a 500,000 to 1 million oz
producer and stay in that range going forward.”
By the sounds of it, Minefinders is well-positioned to reach its goals. IRJ
anticipates the company’s future success and what this second year of
production will bring.
www.minefinders.com