VANCOUVER , Dec. 14, 2017 /CNW/ - Golden Queen Mining Co. Ltd. (TSX:GQM | OTCQX:GQMNF) ("Golden Queen" or "the Company") today announces its operating results for November 2017 , including total gold production of 3,860 ounces and revenue of US$5.4m from its Soledad Mountain gold-silver mine (the "Mine") located south of Mojave, California.  All amounts herein are in US dollars and reflect 100% of the operating results of Golden Queen Mining Company, LLC ("GQM LLC"), the Company's 50%-owned subsidiary that holds the Mine, unless otherwise stated.

Golden Queen advised in its third quarter Form 10-Q that management was accelerating the East Pit development to seek to access higher-grade ore tons as soon as possible to compensate for the shortfall in the ore supplied and the lower than expected gold ore grades from the North-West and Main (Phase 1) Pits. During the period of development of the East Pit, it is expected that gold production will be lower than plan.

In November, the Company completed extraction on two production benches in the East Pit. Results from the reconciliation of the EP1-3780 and EP1-3760 benches indicate higher ore tons than estimated by the reserves due to the presence of ore blocks in the Patience vein structure area that had been classified as possible or simply un-modeled. In addition, the gold grade was 15% higher than estimated for a total of 1.8 times the expected gold ounces that had been predicted. The silver grade was in line with the reserves, but the higher ore tonnage yielded 1.5 times the predicted number of silver ounces.

Management has determined, based on these results, that the Company will initiate a drill program comprising up to 20 holes and approximately 20,000 feet of reverse circulation drilling to commence in the first quarter of 2018 at a projected cost of $1.0m .  This drilling will have three objectives:  to increase confidence in the currently modelled ore grades and tonnage associated with the Golden Queen vein structure, to improve the Company's understanding of the Patience vein structure with the objective of adding additional ounces to the reserves with immediate impact to the mine plan, and to investigate the Silver Queen vein structure in the South-East section where historical underground development appears on historic maps but has not been evidenced in historic extraction reports.

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