2018: A Year of Renewal
2017 was a challenging year for Mandalay, its employees, and its shareholders. In June, Mandalay was hit with an unexpected tragedy when a catastrophic inundation occurred in the bottom level of the Delia NW mine of our Cerro Bayo operation. We lost two of our miners – Jorge Sanchez and Enrique Ojeda – who were working in the bottom level of the of the mine at the time of the event. Our thoughts remain with their families. Operations at Cerro Bayo were suspended immediately, and the Company completed the transition to care and maintenance in September while we work to get the restart of operations permitted.
The flow of news about the tragic events and aftermath at Cerro Bayo overshadowed the excellent news from the Company’s other operations during the remainder of 2017. Despite having only two operations in production for the second half of 2017, Mandalay produced 131,186 ounces of gold equivalent for the year, which was only about 10% fewer ounces than the 145,497 ounces produced in 2016, a year in which all three assets were in operation.
