I can understand your skepticism Priggly but I must add a little truth to your comment. ECU was producing from Velardena in the late 1990's when the gold price got so low they had to stop operations as did many other mines, interestingly they were using the very same oxide mill that exists today. Then ECU acquired the sulphide mill in around 2005/6 and then re-acquired the oxide mill from Hecla in around 2009. The management of Golden meanwhile built & operated the very large Apex operation in Bolivia which they subsequent lost due to hedging issues, etc. in 2008 which Golden Minerals was created out of prior to merging with ECU.

My point is that all these people have operational experience & becoming a producer wasn't the issue, the real issues were cost control, mine access (to increase tonnage of better grade/quality), lost mining time (this includes muck for present production & opening of new stopes for future production) due to losing blasting license, and not being yet able to get max gold recovery as the company was only getting about 60% of gold revenue when selling the sulphide produced gold pyrite con to Newmont.

So let's look at the issues, first cost control, the Golden team tried to run the mine like it was a mid-sized producer versus a small junior producer that hasn't got full mine access yet at Velardena, this didn't work so well as they were warned post merger but wouldn't listen. They have subsequently lowered operational costs but not enough before the gold/silver price collapsed so they decided to shut down temporarily to preserve capital. It's too early to judge this decision.

Second issue, mine access, they completed this prior to shut down but it seems they don't have enough new stopes open to yet exploit this increassed access to the best muck the operation has in Santa Juana mine so the gold/silver price collapse along with temporary loss of blasting license exacerbated this situation. So what should have been a positive became a negative due too circumstances, this maybe can be blamed on poor planning or could have been hampered by cost control measures but not being able to immediately exploit this easier access to the best ores didn't help as the price collapse was happening.

Thirdly, the loss of blasting license, this couldn't have happened at a worse time because gold/silver price was collapsing just as the company had to operate from muck on surface inventories which were not available in great quantity because of restricted mine access for years (tonnage to surface has always been an issue ergo why the new ramp is vital to the future as both ECU & Golden management has always known). So the company ends up with little surface inventory and poor gold/silver price while not having enough new stopes prepared to exploit the new ramp due possibly to cost control and poor planning. It may also be that they expedited the ramp completion prior to shut down so what plans they had to open new stopes may have been violated since originally the ramp completion was not expected until late July, but this last comment is pure speculation on my part.

Fourth issue, gold recoveries, this has been ongoing for years for the sulphide ore as the pyrite con requires further treatment to get good recovery rates. The Newmont processing solution was only ever a temporary fix, a way to monetize some more gold dollars, remember the attempts at a home made functional roaster (it worked but had some issues and Golden abandonned project). The oxide mill suffers from using mixed ores (sulphides mixed with oxides) and this interferes more with gold recoveries than silver it seems at Velardena either that or they have made a conscious choice to maximize silver due to greater revenue versus gold. ECU management had made good progress in solving this problem and finding a good balance in the circuit between gold/silver but Golden's new team screwed this up because they didn't listen. The real solution here is to acquire some additional oxide ore feed to suppliment existing mixed ores and increase tonnage to 800 tpd at least which ECU was planning to do when the merger occurred, they were close to completing this plan but Golden didn't pursue this option, still not sure why other than they didn't listen.

In conclusion, the company gets it's share of fault for planning issues or too big an overhead in head office for a small junior operation or timing issues or not listening to those who knew the project best as these are in their control but they can't control gold/silver price or regulatory changes out of their control. The company can also be faulted for shooting itself in the foot by hiring a no name USA firm to update it's resource inventory when they had a perfectly good report from a world class firm like Micon (actually Micon completed 2 reports over time so were very familiar with the velardena operation), this was really stupid in my view. This mine can be profitable from just the good silver recoveries alone along with zinc/lead/gold credits if they build a larger sulphide mill as has been planned for years with good cost control and the new ramp bearing in mind this is a 97% sulphide mine. Add a good solution to gold recoveries which is cost effective which is certainly doable and this operation becomes very profitable.

The question to be asked is can Golden management operate effectively & profitably a smaller junior producer with gold/silver price a little higher than present. I have voted with my money that they can even of I am less than happy with what they have done to date, the project still has good production potential with a large upside in resources at depth. Of course the gold/silver price will play a part here and if they increase as I expect they will then gold/silver in-the-ground will once again get a valuation as they have historically except for the last few years and then valuations will sky rocket. You don't want to miss this scenario when in-the-ground valaution once again matters along with 2 producing profitable mills with mill expansion plans.

All is not lost yet even if things look and seem poor at present, keep in mind the company has no debt, 2 mills, big resource in multiple countries (El Quevar is a very good discovery), cash in the bank and some time to plan their next move for which I would hope to hear something soon and for which we all can try to keep thier feet to the fire even if some think otherwise. Good luck in your choices.