Caledonia cuts Blanket FY guidance on lower tonnages, grades
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – TSX- and Aim-listed Caledonia Mining has lowered the gold output guidance for its 49%-owned Blanket mine, in Zimbabwe, for the full year to 40 000 oz, as lower-than-anticipated tonnages and grades have adversely affected production at the mine for the three and nine months to September 30.
Blanket produced 9 890 oz of gold in the quarter ended September 30, a 17.8% drop on the 12 042 oz produced in the September 2013 quarter and down 11.9% on the 11 233 oz produced in the quarter ended June 30.
This brought production for the nine months ended September 30, to 31 354 oz.
Caledonia had previously expected the mine to produce about 45 000 oz of gold for the full year.
The gold miner pointed out that the targeted grade for the year had been 3.84 g/t but that the average grade achieved in the first half of the year had been only 3.7 g/t.
In recent months, grades declined even further, owing to lower grades at the AR Main and AR South deposits, which were the two largest tonnage contributors to the mine’s run-of-mine production.
The company was reviewing the medium-term capital investment programme at Blanket with the aim of improving grades and increasing tonnage throughput by fast-tracking developments to access deeper-level resources. The revised programme would be completed in the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, Caledonia noted that the financial performance of the company and the mine were adversely impacted by a further decline in the gold price during the third quarter of the year, as well as by changes to the Zimbabwean taxation regime.
The company would release its results for the third quarter on November 13.
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