PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Triple listed gold miner Kirkland Lake Gold has reported a record quarter for the three months to December, while achieving all of its full year production targets.

Gold production in the December quarter reached a record 396 434 oz, up from the 279 742 oz produced in the previous corresponding period, with Kirkland Lake on Friday reporting that full year production had reached more than 1.3-million ounces.

Gold sales for the quarter were reported at 371 009 oz, with full year sales reaching 1.38-million ounces. Revenue in the fourth quarter reached $691.5-million, up from the $412.3-million reported in the previous corresponding period, while full-year revenue was reported at $2.4-billion, nearly double the $1.3-billion reported in the 2019 financial year.

The increase in revenues for both the fourth quarter and the full year was driven not only by an increase in gold production, but also by higher average realised gold prices for both the fourth quarter and the full year, which reached $1 875/oz and $1 772/oz respectively.

Cash flows for the full year reached a record $1.3-billion, up 43% on the previous financial year, with free cash flows up 58% in the full year to $733.1-million.

“2020 will go down as a year that no one will ever forget. Faced with the challenges of a global pandemic, our team rose to the occasion and effectively responded to the Covid-19 virus with there being no transmissions of the virus at any of our sites during the year,” said Kirkland Lake CEO and president Tony Makuch.

“At the same time that we are focusing on protecting our people, we also turned in our best year ever, achieving record levels of production, earnings and cash flows and meeting all of our consolidated 2020 guidance. In the fourth quarter, we had our best quarter of the year, achieving record quarterly production and earnings, with all three operations reaching their highest production levels in 2020.

“Obviously the high gold price environment was a key factor for both the full year and the fourth quarter, but so was the hard work of a lot of people at our company,” Makuch said.

“In addition to record results, we also achieved a number of other important milestones in 2020. We completed the acquisition of Detour Gold Corporation in January, with Detour Lake contributing over 40% of our free cash flow for the year and significant production growth expected at the mine in 2021.

“We also achieved encouraging exploration results at all three of our cornerstone assets and made excellent progress with our key growth projects.”

For 2021, Kirkland Lake is targeting production of between 1.3-million and 1.4-million ounces.