Goldgroup eyes quick restart plan at Mexican gold mine
Goldgroup Mining Inc. [GGA-TSXV, GGAZF-OTC] said it has launched a 24,000-metre diamond core drilling program at its San Francisco gold project in Sonora, Mexico.
The company said this is the first new drilling program at the San Francisco project in many years and is designed to optimize the resource model and provide additional technical data in preparation for the restart of gold production, targeted for the end of 2026 or early 2027.
The drill program is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2026. The budget for the program is estimated at approximately US$8.0 million. Goldgroup shares were down 1.84% or $0.03 to $1.60 in early trading, Thursday and trade in a 52-week range of $2.16 and 88 cents.
Back in January, 2026, the company said it has signed a US$5.00 million deal with an arms length British Columbia company to sell all of its shares in two subsidiary companies that hold a 100% interest in the Pinos gold/silver project in Zacatecas, Mexico.
“Having received an unsolicited bid for Pinos, management determined that it would be the best use of the company’s resources to dispose of the Pinos asset based on the company’s recent acquisition of the San Francisco gold mine, which is a much larger and more advanced project than Pinos,’’ said Goldgroup CEO Ralph Shearing.
“The company’s focus will be the continued development and optimization of our flagship Cerro Prieto heap-leach gold mine and advancing towards a restart of gold production at the San Francisco gold mine,’’ he said. Both assets are located within 44 kilometres in a straight line from each other in the state of Sonora, Mexico.
The San Francisco project is fully-permitted for a rapid restart of mining operations and consists of two open pits together with heap leach processing facilities and associated infrastructure. The company describes the asset as a robust project with significant gold resources and strong upside in terms of optimized development and multiple, large-scale exploration targets. With a solid foundation of measured and indicated resources of 1.2 million ounces of gold (as noted in a NI 43-101 compliant technical report dated May 1, 2026), the company intends to aggressively explore these targets in a subsequent drilling campaign focused on exploration.
“What’s exciting about the San Francisco project is the possibility of starting gold production quickly in an ongoing strong gold market,’’ Shearing said. “This drill program will give our team the necessary information to optimize a mine plan for the restart of mining operations,’’ he said. “The infrastructure already in place at the mine is a great advantage to our shareholders, reducing the time to less than one year to bring the mine into production at a very low cost.’’
Meanwhile the company is advancing a proposed business combination with Gold Resources Corp. [GORO-NYSE American] , which holds a 100% interest in the producing Don David gold mine in Oaxaca, Mexico as well as the Back Forty gold/silver development project in Michigan, U.S.A.
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