Speaking on a conference call to investors this afternoon chief financial officer Tim Miller explained that the Corihuarmi mine’s costs were ‘pretty consistent’ with the previous quarter, while production and sales had improved.

Minera IRL’s current share price offers an “attractive entry point” for investors seeking exposure to a low risk gold miner and explorer, according to City broker FinnCap.

Minera said that the measured and indicated resource in the ‘high and low grade’ category represents an 89 per cent increase over the resource estimate it inherited when it acquired the project as a result of its acquisition of Hidefield in late 2009

The broker repeated a ‘buy’ recommendation on the South American gold stock, targeting 130p a share, after Minera announced the completion of the Ollachea project’s prefeasibility study this morning. The assessment confirmed that Ollachea could produce 117,000 ounces of gold a year from 2014 onwards.