From Stockhouse -

Timmins Gold Corp’s San Francisco Mine bigger than first thought

Emerging gold producer Timmins Gold Corp (TSX-V:TMM) has confirmed the potential to expand the total resource at its San Francisco Mine in Mexico.

Timmins (many would say wisely) has focused on moving the project into production, while also looking at adding additional resources outside of the existing pit as it looks to extend the mine life of the project. This dual approach appears to be paying dividends for the company. It announced this morning that some 6,750 meters of reverse circulation (RC) drilling (85 holes) has now confirmed that the in-pit mineralization extends along strike to the north-west of the main gold structure.

“The results of the drill program show that the gold mineralization continues NW for at least 200 meters beyond the currently planned pit limit and includes multiple intersections of gold mineralization consistent with the width and grade of mineralization which is contained within the San Francisco pit and which is included in the current mine plan,” Timmins noted this morning.

Recent drill highlights from the 200 meter strike include 3 meters (true width) grading 1.73 grams per tonne gold from 54 meters in drill hole TF-173 and 9 meters (true width) grading 1 gram per tonne gold from 1.52 meters in drill hole TF-240. All drilling reported today returned grades between 0.92 g/t gold and 4.56 g/t gold over widths between 3 and 23 meters (approximately).

Timmins Gold expects to report an updated resource estimate in April.

“This exploration success follows upon the completion of construction and successful commissioning of the process plant and first gold pour in late 2009. The size of the gold mineralization zone, its presence within large shear zones and the continuous nature of the gold within the zones form the basis of management's expectation that planned additional drilling could lead to a significant increase in the mineral resource at San Francisco and could potentially also lead to the discovery of additional satellite deposits within the existing land package,” Timmins stated.

As part of Timmins ongoing exploration at San Francisco, an additional 50,000 meters of RC drilling, which will focus both on infill and step-out drilling, will be undertaken.

The San Francisco Gold mine is a past-producing open pit heap leach operation from which Timmins Gold has projected production at a rate in excess of 80,000 ounces of gold per year at a life of mine cash cost of approximately $412 per ounce.