Fortuna silver production on the rise

After increasing silver production by 85% in 2008 Fortuna Silver Mines (FVI-V) is planning to keep the trend going with an 80% rise this year.

Fortuna’s production comes out of its Caylloma mine in southern highlands of Arequipa, Peru.

From 331,000 tonnes of ore with head grades of 94.5 grams silver per tonne, 3.6% zinc and 2.9% lead, the mine produced 861,000 oz. of silver, 23.3 million lbs. zinc and 16.5 million lbs. of lead.

The company plans to keep the production growing at Caylloma, a high grade epithermal vein system located on a 120 sq. km land package.

Fortuna is projecting to produce 1.6 million oz. silver, 26.9 million oz. zinc, 21.2 million oz. lead and 1.2 million lbs. copper this year.

The mine currently operates at a rate of 1,000 tonnes per day, but Fortuna is looking into increasing production to 1,500 tonnes per day.

Fortuna also has the San Jose silver-gold project in the Taviche mining district in Oaxaca, Mexico. The company’s working on a 36,000 metre infill drill program which it expects to soon finish. The drilling is focused on upgrading inferred resources to indicated in the Trinidad zone before starting a prefeasibility study.

Fortuna shares were up 9%, or 8¢, today to 97¢ apiece on a trading volume of 610,000. The stock has 52-week trading range between $2.96 and 38¢ and 85.3 million shares outstanding.