Whereu, not being very knowledgeable about underground gold...

Whereu, not being very knowledgeable about underground gold mining, I will take a stab at your 2 questions -

1. Why does production fall so far short of their stated plan?
A: Management over promised and underdelivered.
One of the biggest hyped up companies on the ASX in the past 10 years.

2. Why is the production still so variable at this stage of production?

A: Veins are small. So they need to cut away at nothing to get to the small veins. Seems like some months all they do is dig to get to these small veins.

IMO their JORC is a joke and their stated grades do not include all the tonnage that they need to remove to get to the ore to be processed. So their grades should be many times less. But then investors would have turned away long ago.

Question remains - is this mine ecomonically feasible?
That is now beginning to be answered.

But now being only an "exploration" company they are only "exploring". So, low production is not an issue and their strategic growth plan of 2009 does not apply any longer.
Investor may be happy with that - not me, having paid for the families many lunches and now I have to wash the dishes also.

SUDs