Avino Commences Construction Of New Tailings Storage

VANCOUVER, BC - Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. reported the commencement of construction of the new Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) at its Avino property located in Durango, Mexico. Following the receipt of all necessary permits and the completion of an independent engineering study, ground has been broken on the new Tailings Storage Facility.

The TSF will be built in 4 stages; the first 2 stages, which are expected to take approximately 6 months to complete, have an estimated cost of US $2.2 million and will provide enough capacity for 6 operating years. Stages 3 and 4, which can be built at any time in the future, will cost US $624,000 and would provide enough storage for an additional 8 years of operations. Environmental permits are valid for 14 years of operations and an additional 11 years post production. The new TSF is being constructed on land owned by Avino.

A new tailings storage facility is necessary to allow the existing TSF to be decommissioned, which will enable Avino to begin assessing the upper sulphide bench as well as the lower oxide bench in areas that are currently being used to store tailings from our active operations.

The assessment work is part of the recommendations contained in the 2013 Tetra Tech Preliminary Economic Assessment intended to advance the Tailings Resource towards a production decision for an agglomerated heap leach Merrill-Crowe precipitation operation. The 2013 Preliminary Economic Assessment suggests that the operation could have an IRR and NPV of 54% and $38.6 million, respectively, using US $20.38 per ounce for silver and US $1,256 per ounce for gold; and could add an additional 1.4 million ounces of silver equivalent to Avino's consolidated annual production for a period of 5 years.

Once the new TSF is completed, Avino will decommission the current TSF, then begin installing wells which will be used to pump out the retained water in the dam. This will speed up the sonic drilling program planned for the upper benches, provide samples for the metallurgical program, and increase confidence in the oxide resource located below the sulphide tailings.