Great Panther revises 4th quarter production guidance for Tucano, stock down

According to Mining News Pro - Annual consolidated guidance, which includes Mexican operations — and Tucano operations from the March 5, 2019 acquisition date — is adjusted to 142,000 – 149,000 gold equivalent ounces, an approximate 6% decrease from the midpoint of the prior production guidance range of 150,000 to 160,000 gold equivalent ounces.

Following the geotechnical incident which suspended mining at Tucano’s Urucum Central South pit in October, production was accelerated from Urucum North and Urucum South pits, Great Panther said in a media release.  

 “Mining from these two pits has since encountered lower than expected productivities due to higher than normal rainfall, increased pit congestion due to more constrained mining geometries, and smaller blasts needed to separate ore and waste to reduce dilution.  These collective factors paired with ore variability resulted in lower than expected production,” the miner said in the statement.  

The reduction in gold production guidance is also expected to increase cash cost and AISC, which are now expected to come in at the high end of the range of the miner’s existing cash cost and AISC guidance for 2019; and are not expected to exceed more than 5% of the top end of the ranges.

  The increase in unit costs due to the lower production ounces are somewhat mitigated by the positive impacts of lower throughput costs and a weaker than budgeted Brazilian real currency, in addition to lower than planned capex in the case of AISC, Great Panther said.  

At market close Friday, Great Panther’s stock was down 6.5% on the NYSE, and then rose 1.3% in after hours trading. The day’s trades reached over 2 million, double the average volume. The company has a $135 million market capitalization.