Goldgroup Mining is progressing its producing gold mine in Mexico. Executive Insight spoke to company CEO Ralph Shearing about the current state of play.
Prospects Golden
Canada-based mining company Goldgroup Mining is progressing its producing gold mine in Mexico, a promising venture in an industry sector that is in the very early stages of a dramatic recovery from historic lows. Executive Insight spoke to company CEO Ralph Shearing about the current state of play.
Goldgroup operates in Mexico at its 100% owned the Cerro Prieto heap-leach gold mine located in Sonora.
According to Ralph Shearing, Goldgroup represents a unique opportunity given the expected developments. “Goldgroup as a junior mining company is trading at very undervalued prices and has a great potential to realise a lot more value in the coming months and over the next several years,” he says.
Shearing was asked by Goldgroup’s major shareholder to join the company as its CEO in October 2023, to focus on Goldgroup’s operational improvements and resource expansion. An experienced and accomplished exploration and mining executive, Shearing has held senior director and senior executive positions with public junior mining and exploration companies, primarily with Luca Mining, a company he founded in 1986 where he successfully guided Luca’s Mexican Tahuehueto gold and base metal mine through its exploration phase into early construction and the first production gold mine in Mexico.
Shearing, along with Goldgroup’s technical team will be instrumental in progressing the Cerro Prieto mine into a profitable business. “Goldgroup is a well-structured public mining company with a controlling mining investment fund holding over 50% of its outstanding shares.”
“Additional benefits include an operating heap leach gold mine with all infrastructure, equipment and permitting already in place and fully paid for, so any new resources to be discovered with advanced exploration on already identified mineralized zones will be available for immediate production with minimal capital cost.”
This major advantage will allow for immediate stock price appreciation...
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We recently drilled the Esperanza zone.
“This major advantage will allow for immediate stock price appreciation with planned improvements to increase crushing capacity, double production, improved recoveries and reprocessing of heap leach pads that still contain significant unrecovered gold.”
Promising exploration results
The Cerro Prieto Mine is an open-pit heap-leach gold mine. From the start of mining operations in 2013 to June 2024, Cerro Prieto has produced 117,033 ounces of gold. Ongoing mining operations continue to produce approximately 1,000 – 1,200 ounces of gold monthly.
I believe that drilling will be successful on these zones and discovered resources should add several more years of life to the mine.
Shearing explains that the mine has been under-funded and faced many challenges over the past several years as a result. Despite this, the mines future looks very bright. Along with increasing gold prices, Shearing and team have identified a pathway to success by increasing gold recoveries, expanding production towards 5,000 tpd, a re-leaching initiative and realizing the mine excellent exploration potential with trenching, geophysics and drilling. Shearing, is very confident that this will extend the projects mine life at the major structure called Prieto Shear.
“In the past, mining was focused within 1.6 kilometres of the Cerro Prieto Shear, a major north-trending, near-vertical shear zone up to 65 metres in width. Only limited exploration has been completed along this major structure to the north and south of the mining areas.”
This is what the company is focusing on now. Recent exploration has resulted in the discovery of significant mineralization in several new zones along the trend of the Cerro Prieto Shear, both north and south of the existing mine, that could develop into significant minable zones.
“We recently drilled the Esperanza zone, which is an immediate northward extension of the mine on the Prieto Shear; the ore body was partially drilled, then developed and we are mining it now. We are planning to start drilling the Nueva Esperanza and the Reyna zones, which are both contiguous northly extensions to the Esperanza zone. Based on my experience as an exploration geologist, I believe that drilling will be successful on these zones and discovered resources should add several more years of life to the mine.”
“We’ve also had some really good success in outlining new targets about 1 km to the south of the mine heap leach pads on the Cerro Prieto Shear zone. Only surface work has been completed so far, however, I believe there is a very, very good chance that we could come up with additional resources on the new zones. This could further significantly extend the life of the mine depending on the success that we encounter during the exploration phase of these zones.”
Steady progress
Shearing affirms that the company has a great team of people on site who have stepped up and beyond the calling, to make the project a success. “Unlike some countries, Mexico has a well-developed mining industry and mining jobs are well paid.”
“We directly employ some 130 people, of whom 25 are women in professional mine management and operating positions, and provide jobs indirectly to about another 300 contractor employees. We also support universities with technical geological and engineering training, with many graduates ending up working for the mine.”
He further affirms that while progress is being made on improvement plans, all aspects relating to environmental protection are being considered. “Water conservation is a priority as the mine is located in the Sonora desert. We also work on fauna transplant of zones and have created a cactus nursery to replant on impacted areas during future reclamation.”
But for the moment, work continues. The company is planning to expand the crushing system so it can process up to 5,000 tonnes a day and put that material on the heap-leach pads. This should be accomplished within the coming weeks, says Shearing.
There is also a focus on the existing leach pads. “The mine has only ever
– we’ll be able to put Goldgroup Mining back on the map as a very significant junior gold producer in Mexico.
achieved up to 60% recoveries leaving 40% unrecovered gold. So there’s a lot of gold still tied up in those leach pads. We are preparing a reprocessing programme to re-screen, re-crush and re-leach the material in the pads. Re-leaching 4,500 tonnes a day for 5 years would potentially add 9,300 ounces of gold annually. That will make a good additional source of income for the company.”
Path to success
Speaking of the coming months, Shearing says that Goldgroup has developed a plan to progress the key initiative – double current production to 4,500 tpd annually, re-leach existing leach pads, increase recoveries and explore advanced and new exploration zones. The longer-term plan is to grow the company through acquisition in a low-cost environment of extremely undervalued mining assets.
“Although the stock price is very low, the future looks very bright with a planned doubling of production, increasing the current 1.5 year mine life through exploration to perhaps an additional 2–5 years with advanced targets and possibly many more years if highly perspective new zones develop into minable resources,” Shearing says.
“Add to that the leach-pad reprocessing and you have a productive mining operation for the coming years. With success, we have a completely different scenario on our hands – we’ll be able to put Goldgroup Mining back on the map as a very significant junior gold producer in Mexico.”
