The São Francisco gold mine is located within the Guapore Gold Belt - a greenstone belt with numerous gold deposits and occurrences along its almost 200 kilometre strike length.
Project History
In November 2004, Yamana completed an updated feasibility study on São Francisco and made a construction decision. The mine was built by early 2006 and commercial production was declared in August 2006.
Type of Operation
The property is an open-pit, heap leach gold mine that involves three different streams of processing including crushing-gravity-heap leach, crushing-heap leach, and run-of-mine heap leach. This is a complex ore body and is impacted by a significant mine call factor which can cause variability periodically.
Mine Highlights
A new mine plan was implemented in 2008.
Improvements in 2008 included better ore grade estimation and new geological modeling.Enhanced mine productivity and cost reduction focus will continue in 2009.
Reserves and Resources
(at December 31, 2008)
Proven and Probable Reserves
31.9M tonnes at 0.71 grams/tonne gold = 727,000 ounces gold
Measured and Indicated Resources
(exclusive of Reserves)
33.4M tonnes at 0.51 grams/tonne gold = 549,000 ounces gold
Inferred Resources
(exclusive of reserves)
24.9M tonnes at 0.73 grams/tonne gold = 582,000 ounces gold
Approximately 6 years