Great Panther picks safety, re-idles Tucano UCS pit

Canadian-based gold and silver producer Great Panther Mining has, for the second time in five months, opted to suspend operations at the Urucum Central South (UCS) pit at its Tucano gold mine in Brazil over safety concerns.

The company’s geotechnical committee has advised of additional remediation work that needs performed at the pit to improve safety factors; pit wall issues also forced its closure in May.

Specifically, the miner said that preliminary information from Oct. 16 revealed that additional waste material needs to be removed and work has commenced on a new pushback on the west wall of the UCS pit. The project is expected to take six to eight weeks.

President and CEO Rob Henderson said Great Panther is considering alternatives to accelerate production from other areas at Tucano, but it also expects to see its consolidated production guidance to be lower than anticipated and costs higher.

“UCS is one of several pits at Tucano and we are considering multiple pathways to accelerate production from other areas,” he said.

“This latest development is indeed a setback and delays our ramp up back to full production, but ultimately we expect to realize the value from the UCS pit once the pushback activity is complete.”

The company has not altered its ore mining progress at the Urucum North open pit. Plans are also still in motion to bring the mine’s TAP C open pit back into production and advance the high-grade underground project. 

Stripping also continues on the TAP AB pit, which is set to deliver ore next year.

The Tucano project is located in the Amapá state, Brazil, approximately 200 kilometers from the state capital of Macapá.Source: Great Panther Mining

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