Base load open pits drive down Norton costs
Tania Winter
Monday, 25 October 2010
A SHIFT in mining activities to the Navajo Chief and Janet Ivy deposits was the primary driver behind falling cash costs of $A951 an ounce for Norton Goldfields at its Paddington plant in Western Australia in the latest quarter.
The plant at the Paddington gold mine.
This was an $87/oz improvement on the June quarter numbers and follows the company?s decision to move out of the high-cost Havana and Waldon operations.
A total of 41,586oz was produced in the September quarter from the processing of 861,600 tonnes of material grading 1.66 grams per tonne at a recovery rate of 92%, compared to 832,700t grading 1.71gpt at a 94% recovery rate in the June quarter.
A total of 692,000t grading 1.31gpt was mined in the quarter, versus 646,000t at 1.26gpt in the June quarter.
Total material movement for the period was 2 million bank cubic metres compared with 2.5Mbcm for the previous three months, with open pit ore sourced from Waldon, Janet Ivy and Navajo Chief.
Both of the latter are long-life base load mines that are expected to contribute to an overall reduction in Paddington?s unit costs, while Waldon contributed 408,000t grading 1.52gpt for the period and Janet Ivy added a further 135,000t grading 1.06gpt.
The Homestead underground mine produced 40,100t of ore grading 6.15gpt, versus 36,300t at 5.65gpt in the June quarter.
Capital expenditure for the quarter reached $14.6 million of which $10.8 million was on mine development activities, while the balance was on other items.
Exploration spending during the three months totalled $2.6 million and company debt was reduced by $38 million to $97.3 million, with cash in the bank of $32.8 million and $18.8 million held in cash-backed environmental bonds.
Reserves and resources were also updated during the period to 19.9 million tonnes grading 1.89gpt for 1.2Moz and 88.8Mt at 1.95gpt for 5.5Moz respectively.
more and more on 200000 onzen
Base load open pits drive down Norton costsTania WinterMonday,...
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