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Manuka books record gold sales and profit for August
Mining
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Manuka has knocked it out of the park again, with August gold production and profit from its Mt Boppy mine beating July’s numbers.
Manuka Resources (ASX:MKR) booked a $2.8m profit on the sale of 3,196oz of gold and 1,542oz of silver from Mt Boppy in NSW’s Cobar Basin.
This higher production and profit was despite there being 5.5 less days of production and a further five days of only part production due to COVID-19 related issues.
July and August have set the stage for a strong September quarter, with Manuka expecting the momentum to continue into 2022.
Manuka previously flagged it expected to produce 10,000oz more gold than its original forecast at the time of its IPO thanks to increased grades and mining and haulage efficiency gains.
“This is the second consecutive month of strong gold ore grades, steady production, and improved recoveries from the installation of the second ball mill, which is essentially a regrind mill,” executive chairman Dennis Karp said.
“We are benefiting strongly from the coincident impact of each of these three key factors, and our expectations for the remaining ~ 5-6 months of gold production remain strong.”
Karp told Stockhead the second ball mill boosted recoveries to 77% from 75.5% in July.
This sets Manuka up nicely as it prepares to transition to silver production at its Wonawinta mine and realise its ambition of becoming Australia’s largest primary silver producer.
Because of the strong gold production performance, Manuka now plans to switch to silver production from the 515,000 tonnes of Wonawinta stockpiled ore, which has a high grade of 70g/t and is not included in the company’s resource estimate, in early 2022.
This will be followed by the processing of a further 200,000 tonnes of stockpiles that are also close to the plant.
The added bonus for Manuka is that there is no mining cost associated with the stockpiles because they are already out of the ground and on the ROM pad.
Once all the stockpiles have been processed, Manuka expects to start mining its existing silver resource.
Manuka is also continuing exploration at both Wonawinta and Mt Boppy.
Drilling has restarted along the Wonawinta trend and on the adjacent Wirlong prospect. This will be followed by drilling to test the Smiths Tank, McKinnons and Guzzi targets.
A second rig will start drilling at Canbelego in October and will test potential extensions of the Mt Boppy Lode and nearby untested targets.
This article was developed in collaboration with Manuka Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
