El Gallo

About El Gallo

Located in Mexico

The El Gallo Complex is located in Mexico’s Sinaloa State, along the foothills of the Sierra Madres Occidental mountain range, with a property package including over 1,700 square kilometers of mineral claims. The land package is located 4 kilometers from the town of Mocorito and is easily accessible by road.

McEwen acquired El Gallo in 2007, initiated a significant exploration effort and announced the initial silver and gold discovery holes in the complex in November 2008. The complex includes the El Gallo and Palmarito silver deposits and the Magistral gold deposit, all located within a 13-kilometer (8-mile) radius.

The El Gallo Mine had the first gold pour in September 2012 and achieved commercial production in January 2013. Until June 2018 it operated as an open pit with crushing and heap leach processing, at a capacity of 4,500 tonnes of ore per day, having produced 279,000 ounces of gold and 134,000 ounces of silver for 281,000 gold equivalent ounces at an average cash cost of $655 per ounce. Due to the transition to deeper sulfide mineralization that is not amenable to heap leaching, mining and crushing activities ceased in the second quarter of 2018. Gold and silver production after mid-2018 was from residual leaching activities, that continue together with closure and reclamation work.

Our team in Mexico is also working on a new project for the El Gallo Complex. To find out more information please visit our Fenix project page.

El Gallo Production

Between 2012 and 2024

310,000

Oz Au

159,000

Oz Ag

Big Land
Package,
Exploration
Potential

Production at El Gallo

From its beginnings in 2012 until 2017, the El Gallo Mine produced 240,000 gold ounces and 125,000 silver ounces. During Q2 2018 mining and crushing activities ceased and contractor equipment has been demobilized from the mine site, with onsite operations further continuing through residual heap leaching.

In 2018 El Gallo produced 39,000 ounces of gold and 9,000 ounces of silver from mining and residual heap leaching.

Further annual production by residual leaching at El Gallo was 16,300 (2019), 8,100 (2020), 3,600 (2021), 612 (2022), 797 (2023) and 1,052 (2024) gold equivalent ounces.

The Sustainability Report for our operations at El Gallo can be accessed here.

Our team in Mexico continues the work on the Fenix project. In December 2025, the Company announced the receipt of the permit that will allow us to begin Phase 1 Mill Construction. The Company is targeting mid-2026 for construction start, and mid-2027 for our first gold pour at Fenix.


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