Ascendant turns around El Mochito

Since Ascendant Resources (TSX: ASND; US-OTC: ASDRF) acquired the El Mochito zinc-lead-silver mine from Nyrstar for just US$500,000 in December 2016, the company has increased production 81% and cut costs 30%. The junior zinc miner also started generating free cash flow in the fourth quarter of 2017, after a rigorous, nine-month overhaul of operations at the underground mine, which has produced in northwestern Honduras since 1948. “We are miners and they are smelters,” the company’s president and CEO, Chris Buncic, said of Nyrstar. “When we went in and looked at it, we saw an immense amount of opportunity to go in and fix things.” Fix them they have. Under Ascendant’s 100% ownership, the mine moved from 38,521 tonnes milled at a cost of US$112.21 per tonne in January 2017 to 69,578 tonnes milled at US$77.80 per tonne in December 2017. Continue reading at The Northern Miner.