PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior gold miner Tietto Minerals has adjusted its production outlook for the second half of 2023 for its Abujar gold mine, in Cote d’Ivoire.
The company in July this year achieved commercial production at Abujar, and set a production guidance of between 105 000 oz and 120 000 oz, at an all-in sustaining cost of between $875/oz and $975/oz.
Tietto on Tuesday lowered this guidance to between 75 000 oz and 85 000 oz, to reflect grade control drilling results received over July and August, as well as the lack of stockpiles and the company’s updated reserve model.
The gold project is forecast to generate cash flows of $50-million to $60-million in the second half of the year, at an all-in sustaining cost of between A$1 175/oz and A$1 350/oz.
In August, Tietto produced 11 191 oz of gold at Abujar, milling more than 400 000 t of ore at an average grade of 0.90 g/t gold.
“We produced free cashflow of more than A$10-million in August following our first month of commercial production at Abujar in July. Detailed grade control results have confirmed a life-of-mine (LoM) update has resulted in the same amount of contained gold, but a 10% increase in tonnes mined,” said Tietto MD and CEO Matt Wilcox.
“We have initiated a debottlenecking study with an aim to increase mill throughput by 15% to 5.5-million tonnes a year, which will bring forward gold ounces and lower cash costs of production.
“We will release a full LoM study by the end of September based on the current circuit, which we expect will result in average production of 172 000 oz gold over the first seven years of production at an expected all-in cost of approximately A$1 100/oz, producing very strong annual free cashflows.”