Photo by: Bloombeg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold developer Excelsior Gold has hedged some 50 800 oz of gold at a price of A$1 570/oz until December 2017.
The ASX-listed company on Tuesday said it had taken advantage of the recent volatility in the gold price by entering into the hedging programme and had also granted call options for a further 21 200 oz of gold throughout 2018, at an exercise price of A$1 600/oz.
The gold would be sourced from the Kalgoorlie North gold project.
Excelsior said the remaining 193 300 oz contained in the project area would remain unhedged and would have full exposure to movements in the gold price.
Excelsior has previously inked an ore treatment agreement with fellow-listed Norton Gold Fields, which would see the company mine three small openpit areas in the Bardoc South project area for ore treatment before the end of December.
Mining of the Zoroastrian openpits would start in November, ahead of the start of ore treatment in January under a longer-term capital contribution agreement, which provided for a minimum 2.5-million-tonne treatment allocation to Norton’s Paddington mill.
The gold hedging was a condition to a A$15-million loan facility agreed upon with Macquarie Bank in July.