VANCOUVER (Commodity Online): Silver Wheaton Corp. (TSX:SLW)(NYSE:SLW), the largest silver streaming company in the world, has revised its attributable silver equivalent guidance from 27 to 28 mn silver equivalent ounces to 25-26 mn silver equivalent ounces, including 15,000 ounces of gold for 2011.
Silver Wheaton's revised 2011 production guidance is primarily attributable to a slower than anticipated production ramp-up at Goldcorp Inc.'s world-class Peñasquito mine located in Mexico.
While silver grades and recoveries at Peñasquito continue to meet or exceed expectations, processing rates are less than anticipated. This is due to lower than forecast pebble feed from the SAG mills to the high pressure grinding roll (HPGR) circuit, and slower-than-expected progress on the raising of the tailings dam embankment resulting in insufficient water for full operation of the milling circuit.
Goldcorp continues to focus on the routine operation of the HPGR portion of the milling circuit, the final step in bringing the plant's throughput to its design capacity of 130,000 tons-per-day.
Efforts are underway to add additional water supplies to eliminate current and future shortfalls. As well, adequate power has been installed in the grinding and HPGR circuits, such that the pebble generation issue can be circumvented by providing supplemental feed which by-passes the SAG mills.
Goldcorp has commenced a $30 million project to bring the supplemental ore feed system into operation by year-end such that full production capacity of 130,000 tons-per-day will be achieved by the end of the first quarter of 2012.
The Company's 2015 attributable production guidance is unchanged at approximately 43 million silver equivalent ounces, including 35,000 ounces of gold. This remains one of the strongest long-term growth profiles in the precious metals industry.
