The San Andres Mine is a heap leach operation with two stages of crushing.  Mining at the San Andres Mine is currently carried out by local contactor using conventional earth-moving equipment.  Current production is approximately 4,200,000 tonnes of ore per annum with an additional 1,100,000 tonnes of waste moved annually.

The crushing circuit consists of a primary jaw crusher and secondary cone crushers, which reduces the ore size to a nominal 80% passing three inches for leaching.  The ore is friable so a significant amount of fines is produced during the crushing stage.  These fines are agglomerated using a combination of cement and lime.   The crushed and agglomerated product are transferred to a series of conveyors to distribute the material on to the leach pads in 6 metre lifts for leaching.  A conventional carbon absorption facility (ADR plant) is used to recover the gold from process solutions and produce a final gold dore product. A new primary crusher, conveyer and agglomerator facility is being commissioned at the San Andres Mine, with a new stacking system scheduled for completion in Q3/2010.  Once completed, these capital projects will significantly reduce the ore haulage costs and allow an increase in production of up to 5,600,000 tonnes per annum of ore.