Hudbay boosts gold reserves, production forecast in Manitoba

In its recent annual mineral reserve and resource update, mid-tier copper producer Hudbay Minerals (TSX: HBM; NYSE: HBM) provided some market optimism in the form of a major boost in gold at its Lalor mine within the Snow Lake Mining complex in northern Manitoba. Last year, the company announced initial results from its Snow Lake gold strategy, which sees its Lalor copper-zinc-gold mine transition to a predominantly gold operation with precious metals constituting a majority of life-of-mine revenues. Several years of work, including drilling, test mining and trade-off studies on processing solutions for the gold ore, fed into the Phase One strategy that resulted in a 65% increase in Lalor’s gold reserves in 2019, the company says. The operations plan also includes processing of the higher-grade gold ore at the company’s New Britannia mill that is marked for a refurbishment program.