Ann: Quarterly Report March 2013 , page-17

Martin,

The previous maximum throughput was c. 1,000tpd although they were able to reach the 100koz pa rate at a throughput of c. 850tpd.

The new Saga shaft has increased haulage to 2,500tpd and that appears to have been already achieved.

The March quarter has been hampered by unscheduled downtime on the old mill resulting in a 15 day loss of production. That, plus the lower grade from development ore is responsible for the lower production over the quarter.

However, as most of the work on the new mill has now been completed and allowing for the 4 weeks needed to tie-in the existing facilities to the new mill during this June quarter, it would appear that management are still expecting to produce c. 23-24koz over the quarter.

This does look challenging and would infer a throughput of c. 100,000t at 8g/t and 92% recovery.

This would equate to a daily milled tonnage of c. 1,785tpd which is well within the new design parameters but perhaps a bit difficult to pull off as they switch over to the full capacity of the new mill.

Whether they actually hit the lower guidance of 70koz for FY13, or miss by some margin, is not really a major issue for me as I am really investing on a MINIMUM rolling 12-month horizon and, in fact, a forward view of 5 years.

But management have stuck with the 70koz guidance so presumably, as long as there are no more unplanned outages, they still think 23-24koz is possible over this quarter.

IF they get near that level of production by the end of June then, in answer to your last question, it would imply that c. 190-210kt of ore throughput might appear likely for the September quarter lifting production close to the 50koz/qtr rate.

If not, then I would be very surprised if they do not reach 50koz by the December quarter. But just IMHO of course!
CPDLC