Operations
El Castillo
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| Ownership: |  | Argonaut Gold Inc. holds a 100% interest |
| Location: | Durango, Mexico | |
| Size: | 1051 hectares of mining concessions |
The El Castillo mine is located in the state of Durango, Mexico approximately 100 km north of the city of Durango. Access to the property is excellent by paved and well maintained gravel roads. Topography is relative flat with low lying hills and elevations not exceeding 1800 meters. The environment is classified as semi-dry with annual rainfall of 550 millimeters per year and the climate is temperate with annual temperatures ranging from 2° C to 35° Celsius. Vegetation consists of small tress, bushes, and cacti.
There are approximately 1051 hectares of minerals concessions and surface rights. El Castillo was a grass roots discovery resulting from a regional exploration drilling program by Battle Mountain Gold during 1995 through 1998. Morgain Minerals conducted a program in 2006 and Castle followed with a program in 2009. In total 364 holes have been drilled.
Two onsite bulk heap leach tests were conducted by Castle Gold is 2005. From the metallurgical testing completes ROM or material (no crushing) recoveries are in the 50%-55% range and crushed ore material recovers are 68%-72% range. Leaching kinetics are rapid with +75% of the total leachable gold being leached in approximately 25 days.
El Castillo is an open pit/heap leach operation. The mine commenced construction and operations in 2007 with commercial production reported in 2008. Mining and crushing operations are contracted and supervised by El Castillo employees. A higher grade fraction of ore, approximately 20-40% of the total ore tonnes mined, in seperated and sized to 3/4 inch minus. Currently there are 78 full-time Minera Real del Oro and 200 contract employees at El Castillo.
The 43-101 published in July of 2008 by A.C.A Howe using a $625 gold price had a mineral resources in the Measured and Indicated categories of 94,300,000 tonnes with an average gold grade of .39 grams per tonne containing 1,182,889 contained gold ounces. The life-of-mine strip ratio is less than 1:1.
