Mexican miner Fresnillo said Monday that a local subsidiary, Penmont Mininghad to temporarily suspend operations due to a workers’ strike that it classified as “illegal”, although it ruled out that the measure would have an impact on production.
Fresnillo, the world’s leading silver producer, said in a statement that the protest at the Herradura gold mine in Sonorawas taken over by “a very small group of unionized personnel” who prevented workers from accessing the site.
The strike, which the company says was not supported by the union or the majority of employees, has ended. The mining company did not detail when it began or its duration.
“The outage is not expected to have a material impact on total production (estimated at around 1% of total sales volume in terms of annual gold equivalent ounces),” Fresnillo reported. “As such, there is no change to our production target for the full year 2023,” he added.
According to the company’s website, Herradura is one of the largest open pit gold mines in Mexico and produced 55.3% of the group’s total gold as of 2020, generating 29.9% of total adjusted revenue.
