Steve Busby: Yes. Thanks, Cosmos. Steve here or Gary if you prefer. Just to give an update of where we’re at, we are currently putting the ducking on for the fans. We got the main duck in the top of the shaft that does a 90-degree elbow and we’re starting to put the horizontal sections in. We got the bases poured. We’re starting to put the mechanical equipment for the fans, the base spans in. These are quite large fans. Each – there’s two of them. They’re 2,000 horsepower each. So our intention is to have the first one operational by the start of Q3, and we’re on track for that. It looks really good. There was a lot of effort, a lot of logistical expediting going on, particularly around some of the electrical components, VFDs and things like that.
So that’s coming our way. It looks good. That’s all coming together well. In the meantime, we’re laying out our plans for when we get that ventilation going. We do know we’ve got rehabilitation works to do in the area of Candelaria East and the Deeps. We got to get back in there and rehabilitate some of the ground control systems that were there that were eroded or damaged through the years of this hot humid air going through those areas. So we’re starting to see some of that already because we do have a bit of flow going through the shaft now. So it is getting us into that area. We can see it. There is a lot of rehabilitation work that has to be done. There is a lot of development work that we have to start advancing. So as that error comes on, we’ll start advancing the development and you’ll slowly see the tonnages creep up.
Our goal is to get back to the 2,000-plus tonnes a day by year-end. So it will be a slow gradual increase from our kind of 1,300, 1,400 tonne a day they currently have. In reality, we don’t — we’re not forecasting an increase in grade as that happens. We’re Q1 was a pretty decent grade, I’d say, a 300-plus gram per tonne. We might see a little bit of tweak upwards on that as we start that development work. But we do want to balance that. Again, what we do – what we’d like to do is mine lock Colorado at its reserve grade. So that’s really our objective. We’re not going to go in and try to high-grade it. We want to get the tonnage up and we want to run at reserve grades in the steady-state condition for as long as we can. So that’s kind of — we stand behind our quarterly guidance of ramping that up.
That’s a big driver into our increased production in the latter half of the year. Things are, we have our challenges. We got rehabilitation challenges. We got development advanced challenges. But we’re getting the air there and things are looking good. So, we’re feeling good about the project. And we’re on schedule to get that fan running, and start this effort to start ramping the tonnage up.
Cosmos Chiu: That sounds great, Steve. Maybe switching gears a little bit at El Peñon, I noticed that grades also improved in Q1 quarter-over-quarter by a little bit. Gold went up 3.24% in the last quarter to 3.38%, kind of same degree for silver. I know there’s been some issues in the past in terms of grades at El Peñon, are we trending in the right direction? I understand that you’re drilling it. You’re still waiting on some of the drilling results. But could you maybe comment on El Peñon as well?
Unidentified Company Representative: Yes. Cosmos, Okay Gary. This is Chris. Yes, we’ve really hit the ground running this year. Last year, we had a – we did have an issue with the drilling. Getting a new drill contractor, it took a while to ramp up. But certainly hit the Q1 running, and we certainly see a lot of that drilling now coming into the information for the midyear reserve and resources update for El Peñon. I would certainly like to believe that we would be keeping these grades. And there’s – as you drill through these blocks, you get some good results. But generally, we’re seeing that reserve grade panning out in the drilling. Like I said, there’s going to be ebbs and flows as to how this turns out in that midyear update, and we’re looking forward to updating everyone in August.
Cosmos Chiu: Great. And maybe one last question on Heron [ph]. As you mentioned, the dry stack tailings project is well underway and should be completed in 2024. Could you remind us in terms of the benefits of this dry stack tailing project? Is it extension of mine life? Is there going to be more sort of capacity in terms of tailings what are some of the key benefits to it.
Steve Busby: Yes, Cosmos, Steve here. Yes. Our tailings dam five are conventional tailings we’re currently using will reach its ultimate capacity in kind of mid — in Q1 of 2025 is the current schedule. So this is the next stage of tailings for the current reserves and life of mine that we see are on is moving away from conventional tails gives us an ability to open up new areas for tailings depositions that are easier to manage that don’t require quite the extensive dam development and empowerment development. So it allows us to open up more areas that we need for the life of mine reserves and resources that we intend to mine that we’re on. So it’s really just a shift from methodologies to something more robust and more capacity as we look into the future.
