Vancouver’s Endeavour Silver Corp. (TSX:EDR) plans to buy two Mexican properties from Toronto’s AuRico Gold Inc. (TSX:AUQ) for up to US$250 million.
Endeavour will acquire 100% interests in AuRico’s operating El Cubo silver-gold mine in Guanajuato State and the Guadalupe y Calvo silver-gold exploration project in Chihuahua State.
El Cubo is a producing silver-gold mine in central Mexico, 10 kilometres from Endeavour’s operating Guanajuato silver-gold mine.
Guadalupe y Calvo is an advanced silver-gold exploration project, which AuRico Gold recently announced an updated resource estimate and preliminary economic assessment envisioning a combined open pit and underground silver-gold mining operation at Guadalupe y Calvo.
Endeavour stated the acquisition of the El Cubo mine is an excellent fit with the company’s growth strategy. It said the historic mining district has good exploration potential to increase silver-gold resources and could become Endeavour’s fourth mine.
Bradford Cooke, chairman and CEO of Endeavour, said, “El Cubo's proximity and similarity to, and potential synergies with, our Guanajuato mine, make El Cubo a logical and strategic acquisition for Endeavour that will have an immediate and sizable impact on our production, reserves and resources with minimal or no dilution to our shareholders.
“We hope to replicate at El Cubo the same types of exploration and operational successes that we have engineered at our Guanacevi and Guanajuato mines.”
