Dallas, Texas 09/09/2013 (Financialstrend) – In the 2013 Q2, Great Panther Silver Ltd (USA) (NYSEMKT:GPL)’s operations generated record levels of metal production. However, the metal prices were significantly lower and the high unit costs affected the company’s margins very severely said the President and Chief Executive officer Robert Archer.
He said that the high unit-costs were a function of the quarterly sales. These were a reflection of production from the Q1 as well as April at higher site costs and lower grades. The May and June production showed an improvement in grades and reduced site costs. He added that they are in major cost-cutting efforts and look forward to profitability at the company mines.
Cost cutting measures
The non-essential cap expenditures at the mine have either been deferred or cut and the priority now is mine development. This will be on an ongoing basis. He said that the company had also made some major cuts at their administrative and general overheads. This had been achieved via salary deferral for senior management, layoffs and reduction in exploration and communications budgets.
The former have now been limited to the company’s core operations. The expectation is that all these changes will lead to lower administrative, general and exploration expenses in the second half of 2013. The company is also committed to looking for more ways of reducing expenditures and operational costs.
Q3 results will be better
The initiatives to improve grade-control and also to reduce cost at Great Panther Silver Ltd (USA) (NYSEMKT:GPL)’s operations have been implemented as a response to the low grades that were yielded in the Q1. The sharp decline in prices of precious metals at the start of the Q2 added some impetus to all these initiatives. What was unfortunate was that most of the production was in the form of inventory by the end of the quarter. This was due to shipping lead times. The expectation is that the Q3 results will reflect all the benefit from the sale of the higher-grade and lower-cost production from the Q2.
