PureGold reaffirms Q3 guidance

Both the August ore throughput of 25 188 t, or 813 t/d, and gold production of 4 595 oz, represent monthly records for the mine to date. Ore throughput of 24 052 t in July was also a monthly record until being broken in August, the company reported on Monday.

Pure Gold Mining said that the increase in ore throughput had been driven by improved short-range planning processes, improved mining execution and increased mill availability.

“These fundamental improvements are expected to continue to support strong and increasing production going forward,” the miner said, noting that its near-term target was to increase ore throughput towards 1 000 t/d.

The company is implementing a turnaround plan at the PureGold mine and will update the life-of-mine (LoM) and prefeasibility study plans. Both will be released in the fourth quarter.

Pure Gold further reported that site-level operating plus sustaining capital costs were expected to be in the range of $9.5-million to $10.5-million a month for the third quarter. Costs at these levels are in line with costs in the second quarter of 2022 and represent an absolute reduction of about 25% and a cost-per-tonne reduction of about 50% compared with the first quarter of 2022.

Several opportunities to further reduce costs are under way or have been completed, including replacing rentals and contractors with more permanent solutions and completing key infrastructure upgrades including the new camp, new electric compressors, and a new mine air heater.

Pure Gold said further opportunities had been identified and were expected to be implemented in early 2023. This represents a slight delay from prior disclosure of implementation by the end of 2022.

The estimated amounts for these further opportunities remains unchanged from prior disclosure at savings of $1-million a month (about 10%) compared with third quarter costs.

These and other longer-term savings opportunities were expected to be identified and incorporated into the updated LoM plan.