Overview
Status | Care and Maintenance |
Mine Type | Underground |
Commodities |
|
Mining Method |
|
Production Start | ...  |
Mine Life | 2021 |
The Company suspended mining operations at the El Compas mine in August 2021 due to exhaustion of reserves. The mine, plant and tailings facilities are on short term care and maintenance, while management conducts an evaluation of the alternatives including final closure. |
Source:
p. 24
In May 2016 Endeavour Silver acquired Oro Silver Resources Ltd. which owned the El Compas project through its wholly owned Mexican subsidiary, Minera Oro Silver de Mexico SA de CV.
On September 12, 2022, Endeavour Silver Corp. entered into an agreement to sell a 100% interest in Minera Oro Silver de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. (“MOS”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavour to Grupo ROSGO, S.A. de C.V., (“Grupo ROSGO”). MOS holds the El Compas property and the lease on the La Plata processing plant in Zacatecas, Mexico.
Pursuant to the agreement, Grupo ROSGO will pay Endeavour $5 million cash over five years with an initial payment of $250,000 on signing of the definitive agreement. Instalment payments of $500,000 will be made every six months other than the third payment, which will be $750,000. The payments are secured by a pledge of the shares of MOS.
Completed the sale of the property and the plant for US$5 million over five years.
Contractors
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Deposit Type
- Epithermal
- Vein / narrow vein
Summary:
The El Compas and El Orito veins have the characteristics of a low sulfidation epithermal vein system. They occur in a region characterised by numerous, high silver-grade intermediate sulfidation epithermal vein systems.
At the El Compas concession, northerly trending veins in the Chilitos Formation have finely banded, coliform and crustiform open space fill textures. Bladed quartz after calcite textures are common. Veins in felsic rocks are comprised of saccharoidal to fine-grained quartz, banded veins. Wider veins in felsic rocks are observed in the Cantera pit and at the El Compas shaft. These veins show breccia and bladed quartz-after calcite textures. Calcite is observed in bands in large andesite-hosted quartz veins and in veinlets distal to mineralised zones in very weakly propylitised rocks.
Within the El Compas ramp, the widest calcite veins (>0.75m, both black and white coarse grained calcite) occur as north-west trending veins. Large northerly trending calcite veins have not been observed on surface or in the El Compas ramp; however, thick calciterich quartz veins were intersected by drilling at deeper levels below the mine and elsewhere that appear to correlate with the north-south trending El Compas and other veins. Sulfide abundance in veins rarely exceeds 5%, and is most abundant in the mineralised veins. Pyrite or pyrrhotite are the most common sulfides. Rare sphalerite and exotic copper was observed at the 7th level of the El Compas ........

Summary:
Since publishing the El Compas preliminary economic assessment (“El Compas PEA”), the Company continued to optimize mining methods, the crushing circuit and grinding alternatives and was successful on a number of fronts in improving the operating metrics. The work index of the ore and the size on the motor allowed the capacity of the milling circuit to increase to 325 tpd, which allowed for the mining method to be changed to mechanized cut and fill from captive cut and fill. Mechanized cut and fill increases the mining rate but has the same cost profile as captive cut and fill previously disclosed in the El Compas PEA.
Source:

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Flow Sheet:
Summary:

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Reserves at December 31, 2021:
El Compas Mineral Resources cut-off grades are based on a 3.42 g/t gold equivalent.
Category | Tonnage | Commodity | Grade | Contained Metal |
Indicated
|
20 kt
|
Gold
|
6.42 g/t
|
4,000 oz
|
Indicated
|
20 kt
|
Silver
|
78 g/t
|
49,000 oz
|
Indicated
|
20 kt
|
Silver Equivalent
|
592 g/t
|
373,000 oz
|
Inferred
|
18 kt
|
Gold
|
5.96 g/t
|
3,400 oz
|
Inferred
|
18 kt
|
Silver
|
70 g/t
|
40,000 oz
|
Inferred
|
18 kt
|
Silver Equivalent
|
547 g/t
|
311,000 oz
|
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