Dry weather conditions helped a Vancouver-based miner set a quarterly record for its silver production in Mexico this year.
Pan American Silver Corp. (TSX:PAA) pulled 6.9 million ounces of silver out of the ground in the second quarter, representing an 18% increase over the same period in 2009.
That helped the company post a 32% increase in sales to $147.3 million when compared with last year’s second quarter. It generated quarterly consolidated net income of $18.3 million or $0.17 per share.
Most of it is thanks to one mine in Mexico.
Silver production at Pan American’s Alamo Dorado mine increased 71% for the quarter year-over-year.
According to an UBS Securities Canada Inc. research note, dry weather conditions allowed the company to dig deeper and access the higher-grade parts of the deposit before the rains moved in.
As such, Pan American produced 2.4 million ounces of silver at Alamo at cash costs of $2.36 per ounce for the quarter versus an earlier UBS estimate of one million ounces at a cost of $6.37 an ounce.
Pan American is one of the largest silver producers in the world.
BIV profiled company founder Ross Beaty in April. (see “Silver fox” – issue 1068, April 13-19, 2010)