Yamana Gold Agrees to Acquire Extorre Gold


Yamana Gold’s acquisition of Extorre Gold will include Extorre’s Cerro Moro project, shown here, in southern
Argentina. (Photo courtesy of Extorre Gold)
Yamana Gold and Extorre Gold announced June 18 a definitive agreement whereby Yamana will acquire Extorre for cash and Yamana shares valued at about C$395 mil-lion. Extorre’s principal asset is the Cerro Moro gold-silver project in Santa Cruz province, Argentina. The project is based on a high-grade vein system and is located 70 km southwest of Puerto Deseado.

A preliminary economic assessment for the Cerro Moro project outlined a possible 1,150–1,300-mt/d combined open-pit and underground mining operation that could potentially produce 248,000 gold equiva-lent oz per year (geo/y) at cash costs of $303/geo over its first five years of opera-tion (E&MJ, May 2012, p. 14). Project resources are estimated at 1.36 million geo indicated and 1.05 million geo inferred.

Yamana Chairman and CEO Peter Marrone said, “This is a relatively small transaction in that it represents only 3% of Yamana’s market capitalization, yet it could ultimately deliver more than 10% of our total gold equivalent production.” The transaction is expected to close in August.

As featured in Womp 2012 Vol 07 - www.womp-int.com