9 October
Lucapa Diamond Company and the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho have announced the restart of scaled mining operations at the Mothae kimberlite diamond mine after it was put on care and maintenance during the coronavirus lockdown. Isolation measures forced the suspension of operations at the mine in late March this year to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Mining and treatment operations have now restarted at Mothae in compliance with advised health measures to ensure the safety of its employees and contractors. Lucapa will scale the operations to about 75% of capacity due to the pandemic related protocols in place.
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Endeavour Silver has reported production of 942,274 silver ounces and 10,260 gold ounces in the third quarter of this year, for silver equivalent (AgEq) production of 1.8Moz, bringing the year to date production total to 4.4 million AgEq oz. Production at the company’s mines returned to plan during the quarter after a shut down the previous quarter for two months following a government mandated suspension of mining operations due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Endeavour CEO Bradford Cooke said: “After riding out a challenging Q2 with our mining operations suspended for more than half the quarter, due to the government Covid-19 mandate, our operations team were able to deliver a return to our production plan in Q3, 2020.”
Hecla Mining Company has reported increasing production at its Greens Creek and Lucky Friday mines at the end of the third quarter. Hecla Mining president and CEO Phillips Baker said: “Hecla’s strong operating performance was from increasing silver production at Greens Creek and Lucky Friday and managing Covid-19 at all the mines.” With this operating performance combined with higher silver prices, the company was able to close the quarter with $97m of cash and cash equivalents.
