Stronger production results and a higher gold price have lifted Russian miner Trans Siberian Gold’s revenue to a record $27.60-million in the six months ended June 30, compared with $18.8-million a year earlier.
The revenue resulted in profit before tax increasing to $3.2-million, from $0.5-million, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of $8.8-million, up from $5.4-million in the same period of 2017.
Gold production increased by 25% to 17 361 oz and refined production climbed to 20 698 oz, with the average selling price jumping from $1 237/oz in the first half of 2017, to $1 324/oz in the period under review.
Trans Siberian returned to mining higher grade ore in recent months, with the average gold grade during the six months being 6.2 g/t, compared with 5.1 g/t in the prior-year period.
“Our results in the first half of 2018 reflect the actions taken to address some of the challenges we faced,” Alexander Dorogov, who was appointed CEO in July, said in a statement on Tuesday.
The company expects gold production to improve even further in the second half, as the effects of installing additional pumping equipment filter through. The company’s gold production guidance range for the full year is between 36 000 oz and 40 000 oz. The upper end of the range represents a year-on-year increase of about 9% in total production.
Further, the board announced an interim dividend of 0.009c a share, equalling about $1.0 million.