I have no idea,what the market was expecting, but I do know,...

I have no idea,what the market was expecting, but I do know, that this a fantastic outlook for the future. One of the grand masters of value investing -Benjamin Graham - once famously said: "In the short term, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run the market is a weighing machine"

These production numbers will weigh heavily in the future. In this gold price environment we are living in, companies, which will be able to grow organically on relative low costs will be the winners.
Simply put, an output that rises by 30% with costs falling by 10% will result in a much higher share price over the coming years. And that is all without the Superpit.

I assume, there is a reason, NST and SAR didn't publish the KCGN along with the rest.
Just a guess, but maybe they saved this one for the WOW effect. The Superpit has been special in the past and there is hope, that Northern Star (and Saracen) with its proven history of turning around declining assets, that they took over from the big Majors, will do so again at the Superpit.
Especially since there has been very little underground mining in the past, which is NSTs speciality.
Look at what they did with Jundee and Kalgoorlie over the last couple of years and apply that to the KCGN. I expect the production increase over there will be even bigger than at their other operations.
Lets wait and see to know for sure, but for me, whose intention it is to hold this stock for years to come, I am very happy with developments and don't really care about the day to day swings.
Northern Stars share price will by all indications continue its steady rise over the longterm, along with distributed dividends, and that assumes a POG around the level we are currently at. If gold keeps rising, which is likely with all this money printing, the steady climb will become a very steep move upwards.
Its a crazy world we live in and gold miners could become in the future, what internet stocks where in the dot.com boom...