PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold developer Dacian Gold has signed its first gold hedging contract over its Mount Morgans project, in Western Australia.
The company on Wednesday told shareholders that it had forward-sold 52 000 oz of gold at an average price of A$1 782/oz. The gold will be delivered between July 2019 and June 2020, with the hedge representing some 26% of the forecast gold production from the Mt Morgans operation.
“With first production now just nine months away, we believe it was prudent to capitalise on the historically high Australian dollar gold price to underpin forecast project revenues at a time of waste-stripping part of the Jupiter openpit,” said Dacian executive chairperson Rohan Williams.
He noted that the forward sales contract provided some security, and did so at a price which was nearly A$200/oz more than the assumed price in the Mt Morgans feasibility study.
The A$220-million project is expected to deliver 186 000 oz of gold over the first four years of an eight-year mine life, based on a 2.5-million-tonne-a-year carbon-in-leach operation.