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Manuka shares advance as gold production at Mt Boppy restarts
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Manuka Resources has recommenced gold production at its Mt Boppy mine in NSW’s Cobar Basin, with the news giving the producer a nice share price bump yesterday.
Manuka Resources (ASX:MKR) is producing gold again at its wholly owned Wonawinta plant in a strong gold price environment.
The news pushed shares up nearly 13% on Thursday morning to an intra-day peak of 6.1c.
Manuka Resources (ASX:MKR) share price chart
Manuka restarted gold production at its Mt Boppy mine in NSW’s Cobar Basin this week after a preliminary evaluation showed the economic viability of treating a screened product at the Wonawinta plant.
The company’s forward looking production plan underpins a ~3-4 year gold production scenario targeting up to 25,000oz a year. The ~1Mtpa+ Wonawinta mill can produce both gold and silver.
The current strong gold price and superior economics of the Mt Boppy gold mine prompted Manuka to favour gold production over silver production for the time being.
Mt Boppy has previously been a very nice money-maker for Manuka, beating expectations on several levels prior to the completion of Manuka’s first phase of mining in the final quarter of 2021.
During the previous mining campaign, the operation outperformed forecasts by over 70% with respect to ore milled, recovered ounces and sales revenue.
Importantly, the restart of gold production will underpin organically funded exploration of the priority targets identified in the company’s Strategic Exploration Review which was released through the ASX in February of this year.
This Review revealed the substantial silver and gold resource upside along with high-grade base metals potential within Manuka’s Cobar Basin tenements.
It highlighted prospective additional high-value resources of 22-35 million ounces of silver at 40-50 grams per tonne (g/t), primarily from existing pits at Wonawinta, and potentially 250,000-530,000oz of gold at 2.5-3.8g/t, with Mt Boppy open pit and depth extensions, along with the McKinnons & Pipeline Ridge prospects to be the focus.
Manuka also identified polymetallic indicated resource targets, including high-grade copper of up to 3% at its Pipeline copper-gold project.
Executive Chair Dennis Karp was particularly upbeat about Manuka’s recommencement of gold production.
“The screening and processing of the various gold grading dumps and ROM pad located at Mt Boppy, together with the current very optimistic gold outlook, all contribute to providing consistent positive cashflows to Manuka for the next three to four years,” he said.
“At the same time, Manuka will also be working to materially grow its resource inventory in the Cobar Basin.”
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.
