Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed gold producer Regis Resources has reported a decline in gold production for the three months to December, on lower throughput at its Garden Well operation, in Western Australia.
Regis produced 80 065 oz of gold in the December quarter, compared with the 88 818 oz of gold produced in the September quarter.
The Rosemont operation delivered 27 484 oz during the quarter, while the Moolart Well project delivered 25 344 oz.
Production from the Garden Well operation accounted for 27 237 oz of these ounces, compared with the 29 816 oz produced in the previous quarter.
Regis told shareholders on Friday that mill throughput at Garden Well declined during the quarter primarily as a result of a moderate hardening of the ore feed during the quarter, lower mill availability, and the change from steel mill liners to rubber liners in October last year.
Regis said that it was hoping to increase throughput from the current 4.3-million tonnes to more than five-million tonnes at Garden Well, and in the short term, extra crushing capacity was expected to be installed in January this year.
New steel liners have also been ordered, and would be installed in late March.
In the longer term, the company was investigating the addition of a quaternary crusher, and possibly a high-pressure grinding roll press, to provide an enduring step-change in throughput by presenting a finer crushed product to the mill.
The project would cost between A$3-million and A$5-million, and would take between four and six months to complete.