ALLIED Gold has joined the ranks of gold producers in Papua New Guinea after completing its first gold pour at its Simberi project in the country's New Ireland Province.
"We are proud of our effort to commission a significant gold mining operation, against a backdrop of labour shortages and input price pressures," company executive chairman Mark Caruso said.
The company added metallurgical recovery rates are meeting budget estimates, and initial head grade reconciliation data suggest there is potential for grades to be higher than expected.
Allied had previously forecast gold production to start in January but ran into some minor teething issues caused by the failure of mechanical and electrical equipment.
The carbon-in-leach processing plant is expected to reach its full design throughput of 2.2 million tonnes per annum by the end of March.
Allied expects to produce 84,000oz of gold per annum from Simberi.
The company added that engineering is already well advanced on plans to expand production at Simberi by around 60% to 135,000ozpa.
Simberi has current reserves and in-pit resources of 17.7 million tonnes of ore grading on average 1.37 grams per tonne gold, for a contained 785,000oz.
It has a mine life of more than eight years for an initial recovery of some 692,000oz.
Shares in Allied were unchanged at 74c in afternoon trading today.
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