RE: Mining Journal +ve Article28 Mar 2018 18:52
In4c cheers for that. That Arry is a card....reminds me of someone. Seems to also moment on Cerp....hmmmm.
27 MARCH 2018
Ariana readying next gold move
Ariana Resources (LN:AAU) can no longer trade on being a new gold producer. With close to a year of production at its 51%-owned Kiziltepe mine under its belt, investors are now out for more from the �13.7 million (US$19.4 million) capitalised company .
One can see that in the company's share price performance.
After hitting a five-and-a-half year high in February 2017 shortly before pouring first gold, its stock has headed south. Its share price is currently 40% lower than this peak.
This is despite its operating mine performing well - throughput is ahead of schedule and ore grades at the main mining pit, Arzu South, have been higher than expected.
These factors saw the company produce 10,191 ounces of gold and 65,600oz of silver last year from a little under 10 months of output at Kiziltepe.
Production is, again, due to track ahead of its feasibility study plans in 2018 as the company shifts focus to gold-only reporting. Some 20,000oz is expected to be produced at an all-in sustaining cost of around US$600 per ounce.
The recent performance of the plant bodes well for the company sustaining that 20,000ozpa even when the average ore grade drops next year with a move into new satellite pits.
Yet, shareholders want more, which fortunately the company looks to have.
As a 50:50 joint venture partner with local company Proccea Construction, Ariana is entitled to half of the production from Kiziltepe, which is part of the wider Red Rabbit project.
Red Rabbit is a lot bigger than the Arzu South, Arzu North, Banu and Derya openpits that make up Kiziltepe.
There is the Tavsan asset, made up of five mineralised zones, that could add another 30,000ozpa to the joint venture operation.
Ariana is also carrying out resource drilling on the Kizil�ukur asset, which currently hosts 33,000oz of inferred resources averaging 2.11g/t Au and 73.4g/t Ag.
There are three other assets that could also move into the production ranks from Red Rabbit down the line.
Ariana - posssibly realising the trouble it got into with ambitious deadlines in the past when permitting problems scuppered its targets - is not making bold calls on when all of these assets could be producing, but it at least plans to be mining the Tavsan deposit in 2020 and ramping up to 50,000ozpa at Red Rabbit.
What many investors are looking for is updates on another asset north and east of where Ariana is already producing gold in Turkey.
The Salinbas gold project is situated on what Ariana refers to as the "Hot Gold Corridor", being just 4km south of the 4 million ounce Hot Maden deposit.
Investors in London and North America know Hot Maden well. Up until last year, Mariana Resources owned 30% of it and was regularly reporting the sort of mineralised intercepts geologists dream of.
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