The Don Nicolás project is located in Santa Cruz, Argentina within the Deseado Massif geological setting. The gold and silver at Don Nicolás occurs as low sulphidation, epithermal mineralization within sub-vertically oriented quartz-breccia veins.
A Feasibility Study was completed in 2012 by Mineral IRL Limited evaluating an open pit mine with ore production from two districts, Martinetas and La Paloma, located approximately 50 kilometres apart. A private Argentinian company Compañía Inversora en Minas (CIMINAS) acquired the project from Mineral IRL in 2014 and began developing the mine and constructed a processing facility with a two-stage crushing circuit and carbon-in leach treatment plant with capacity to process 1,000 tpd. The first gold doré bar was poured from the Martinetas district at Don Nicolás in September 2017. Cerrado Gold Inc. acquired Don Nicolás in March 2020 and expects the mine to produce approximately 50,000 ounces per year over at least 7 years with ore sourced from the Martinetas and La Paloma deposits. Metallurgical recoveries are expected to average 92% for gold and 47% for silver.
Upside opportunities for the project include underground development of the deeper high-grade shoots at Sulfuro on the La Paloma property, and heap leach recovery of lower-grade material around the Martinetas area where a portion of the mineral resource is based.
Cerrado reported combined underground and open pit Measured & Indicated Resources as of August 31, 2020 of 1.1 Mt grading 5.5 g/t gold and 8.4 g/t silver (based on an underground cut-off grade of 3.0 g/t gold and an open pit cut-off grade of 0.3 g/t gold).
Sandstorm’s royalty is capped at $2 million and covers a portion of the Don Nicolás property claims. Sandstorm acquired the royalty as part of its acquisition of Premier Royalty Inc. in 2013.
