Minera Alamos has achieved progress on its development of the Nicho Main Zone at its Santana gold mine in Mexico.

The company has mostly completed the haulage and access roads, and has also removed the vegetation and surface cover.

Minera Alamos plans to stack the first mineralised material from the NMZ on the Santana leach pad in the second half of the year.

The larger scale of the NMZ compared to the Nicho Norte starter pit will help increase production of gold at the mine, the company said.

The advancement of the NMZ is the final major milestone in the ramp-up of operations at Santana, chief executive Darren Koningen said.

"The development of the second and larger pit will provide access to the main source of known mineralisation at the project supplementing current starter pit operations and allowing the company to ultimately exit the project's pre-commercial phase of production," Koningen said.

At Nicho Norte, Minera Alamos has stacked approximately 18,000 ounces of gold on the leach pad, with an estimated 7,000 ounces of gold recovered in concentrate.

The mine is witnessing a period of drought, with only 45 millimetres of rain in a period which usually sees 45 mm. Minera Alamos hopes that the approaching rainy season of June to September will refill water reservoirs and allow the company to accelerate gold recovery processes in the September quarter.

Minera Alamos received its explosives storage permit and will now conduct all drilling and blasting activities in house.

Construction of the on-site lab will be operational in the coming weeks.

In April, Minera Alamos had previously rehauled its leach pad stacking sequence to cut down on bottlenecks.