LONDON (Alliance News) - Highland Gold Mining Ltd Friday reiterated its full-year production guidance after reporting a small rise in gold production in the first half of the year and said production will substantially rise in the second half of the year.
The Russian gold miner said production in the first half of 2015 rose 1% year-on-year to 121,242 ounces of gold from 120,121 ounces. That production comes from the Mnogovershinnoye, Novoshirokinskoye and Belaya Gora mines.
Two of the mines reported year-on-year rises in production in the first half, but the Mnogovershinnoye mine only contributed 42,451 ounces compared to 61,671 ounces a year earlier.
The Novoshirokinskoye produced 48,634 ounces compared to 42,949 ounces, and the Belaya Gora mine produced 30,157 ounces, almost double the 15,411 ounces produced a year earlier.
Highland's production target for the full year remains between 270,000 to 285,000 ounces of gold, suggesting there will be a large ramp up of production in the second half of 2015 to around 150,000 to 165,000 ounces of gold.
That production increase in the second half will come from Novoshirokinskoye, which will be processing at a rate of 630,000 to 650,000 tonnes of ore per annum by the end of the year, whilst optimisation work at Belaya Gora will continue, which has already led to gold recovery rates rising to 76% in the first half compared to only 55% a year earlier. In June, the recovery rate rose to just under 81%.
Work on its Kekura project is also "progressing as planned" as the company focuses on the technical documentation and processing studies.
Still, Highland Gold shares were down 4.7% to 45.50 pence per share on Friday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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