American gold miner suspends work on Nevada project

Atna Resources (TSX:ATN), an American gold miner, dropped 20% on Tuesdays after deciding to put its Pinson Mine on care and maintenance, the company announced on Thursday.

The Nevada-based mine was forced to make the cuts due to declining gold prices and in order to cut costs.

The weak gold market initially forced the miner to scale-down operations at Pinson in May.

Atna says it will resume operations once gold prices are high enough to maintain a positive cash flow. In the meantime, the firm’s executive team have decided to defer a portion of their salaries until the company is on sounder financial footing.

The ore miner acquired the Pinson site from Barrick Gold Corp. in 2011. Barrick is currently experiencing a 21-year low on the markets and has fired over one hundred employees in the past week.

Operations at Atna’s Briggs gold mine in California will continue.

On Tuesday another North American miner, Canada’s Eastern Platinum, also put one its precious metals projects on care and maintenance — in line with some industry analysts’ predictions that many juniors will sink this year.

Creative Commons image by PDPhotos