Soma’s El Bagre Gold Mining Complex is located approximately 167 km north-northeast of Medellín in the Department of Antioquia, Colombia. Soma produced 23,115 ounces of gold at its El Bagre Mill in 2022 – an increase of 30% from the previous year. Soma’s production forecast for 2023 is a further 50% increase to 35,500 ounces of gold produced.
The increased gold production will be driven by:
- Increased throughputs as mechanized mining is implemented at the Cordero Mine.
- Higher average gold grades as our legacy La Ye and Mangos Mines are mined out, and substantially all 2023 ore will be sources from the higher-grade Cordero Mine.
The El Bagre Mill processes approximately 450 tonnes per day (tpd) when running at full capacity and is permitted for up to 1,000 tpd. The mill historically achieves gold recoveries of ~87% and silver recoveries of ~81%. The plant consists of the following main circuits:
- Three-stage crushing
- One-stage grinding
- Flash coarse rougher flotation in the grinding circuit
- Gravity concentration and intensive cyanide leaching
- Flotation, thickening, and clarification
- Regrinding and cyanidation
- Filtration and cyanide detoxification
- Merrill Crowe gold recovery
- Smelting
- Reagent preparation
- Tailings disposal
