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70 www.resourceworld.com F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 8 Americas Silver mining in Mexico and Idaho by Leonard Melman AMERICAS SILVER CORP. [USA-TSX; USAS-NYSE AMERICAN] is a junior mining company with two important project areas; the Cosala District operation in Sinaloa State, Mexico and the Galena Complex in Idaho. The present combined corporate assets are the net result of their recent business combination with US Silver & Gold. The company's focus in Sinaloa is the transition away from pre- vious operations and advancing production and development at the San Rafael Mine which recently entered commercial produc- tion, on time and under proposed budget. San Rafael is located in the east-central portion of Sinaloa along the western edge of the Sierra Madre Occidental, an extensive ter- tiary volcanic province covering approximately 800,000 km2. The Cosala Project area can be accessed by paved and dirt roads from the city of Cosala, a community of about 17,000 where personnel and mining supplies are available. Mineralization in the Cosala District is related to grandioritic or granitic intrusions emplaced between 140 and 145 million years ago into Cretaceous sedimentary rocks that overlie older basement terranes. Prior to recently achieving commercial achieving production at San Rafael, the company's chief operations in Sinaloa were the Nuestra Senora Project, an underground silver-zinc-lead-copper mine with a processing facility nearby and the El Cajon Mine. At present, both have served primarily as a temporary source of mill feed during the last half of 2017 while the San Rafael Mine was being brought fully on-stream. The company now anticipates that going forward the San Rafael Mine will be the primary source of mill feed for its recently modified Los Braceros Mill. USA's Galena Mine is located in northern Idaho's famed Silver Valley, a region which has seen silver, copper and lead mining since late in the 19th Century. The mine sits outside the town of Wallace, a few miles west of the Montana border in a mountainous region. Geologically, the property is located on metamorphosed Precambrian sedimentary rocks of the Revett Formation, which is part of the Belt Supergorup with vein mineralization falling into two distinct types; silver-copper mineralization containing tetra- hedrite and lesser chalcopyrite as the principal economic minerals and silver-lead mineralization dominated by argentiferous galena. A particular feature of the Galena Mine is the depth of its four shafts with the deepest descending almost 6,000 feet. Development has taken place on 13 levels. Silver-copper ore is processed at the 800-ton-per-day Galena mill while silver-lead ore is sent to the 500 ton-per-day Coeur mill. In addition, the com- pany also owns a 300 ton-per day circuit which is able to process either ore but which is idle at present. Extensive drilling and other exploration works by Americas and previous owners of San Rafael and Galena have enabled the company to file an NI 43-101 compliant reserve and resource esti- mate, calculated as of June 30, 2017. Calculations for San Rafael include proven reserves of 1.585 million tonnes grading 110 grams per tonne (g/t) silver; 1.83% lead; and 4.15% zinc, containing 5.623 million oz. silver, 63.9 million lbs. lead and 145.0 million lbs. zinc. Probable reserves amount to 2.156 million tonnes grading 93 g/t silver; 1.59% lead; and 4.05% zinc, containing 6.47 million oz. silver, 75.7 million lbs. lead and 192.6 million lbs. zinc. Galena's reserves have been divided into two categories, silver- copper and silver-lead. Proven silver-copper reserves amount to 162,000 tonnes grading 506 g/t silver and 0.44% copper, contain- ing 2.635 million oz. silver and 1.6 million lbs. copper. Probable reserves amount to 237,000 tonnes grading 584 g/t silver and 0.42% copper, containing 4.453 million oz. silver and 2.2 million lbs. copper. Proven silver-lead reserves amount to 443,000 tonnes grading 268 g/t silver and 8.35% lead containing 3.817 million oz. silver and 85.1 million lbs. lead. Probable reserves amount to 512 tonnes grading 273 g/t silver and 8.48% lead containing 4.491 million oz. silver and 95.6 million lbs. lead. Based on these figures, as well as additional resources identi- fied on the corporate web-site, the company estimates annual production at San Rafael of 1.0 million oz. silver, 50 million lbs. zinc and 20 million lbs lead over an initially calculated six-year mine life, while at Galena, mine life is presently estimated to be over 10 years, with a gradual shift away from silver-copper ore toward silver-lead ore to reduce costs and increase profitability. Americas Silver is led by a knowledgeable and experienced team including Darren Blasutti, President and CEO; Darren Dell, COO; Warren Varga, CFO; Peter McRae CLO, Corporate Affairs and Steve Wilson, VP, Technical Services. n MINING Underground mining at the San Rafael silver-zinc-lead mine in east-central Sinaloa State, Mexico. Americas Silver declared commercial production as of December 19, 2017 at 1,200 tonnes per day. Photo courtesy Americas Silver Corp.