Fresnillo profit jumps on higher output, prices

Mexican precious metals miner Fresnillo said its pretax profit more than doubled on higher production and precious metal prices.

Pretax profit surged to $1.0 billion from $457.4 million as the price received for its gold and silver grew 27 percent and 40 percent respectively. The world's largest primary silver producer will pay a final dividend of 35.6 cents a share.

The company previously announced that it had produced record levels of gold and silver in 2010, beating its targets at a time of higher precious metal prices, and said output should continue to rise this year. [ID:nLDE70C25P]

"For 2011, despite the uncertain outlook for economic and metal price performance, we expect that our high quality resource base and low-cost production profile will enable Fresnillo to deliver growth," it said in a statement.