Bear Creek Mining Corp. (TSX-V:BCM) does not have a mine in production, but believes it is only four years away from being one of the world’s largest silver producers.
The Vancouver-based company released a feasibility study Thursday for its Santa Ana silver deposit in Peru that puts the company on a path to initial production two years from now.
Key findings in the feasibility study include:
Bear Creek’s other silver deposit in Peru is called Corani, which has an estimated capital cost of US$339 million with an average annual production of 10 million ounces of silver per year for the first six years.
Bear Creek president and CEO Andrew Swarthout said,“With the development of Santa Ana followed by the larger Corani project, Bear Creek has the assets to become a 20 million ounce per year silver mining company by 2014, which would place the company within the top five pure silver mining companies in the world.”
The company’s share value moved up $0.02 to $6.10 after the news was announced, but has been on a steady climb for two months. Bear Creek’s stock price has climbed 67% since July 30.
The value increase has coincided with a run up in silver prices, which increased $4.82 to $22.82 over the same period.
Bear Creek chairwoman Catherine McLeod-Seltzer recently sat down with Business in Vancouver to talk about her success in the mining business, much of which has stemmed from mineral deposits in Peru (See “Rock star” – issue 1091; September 21 to 27).