Kirkland Q1 output down 3% q-o-q owing to planned shutdowns

Gold miner and explorer Kirkland Lake Gold produced 30 316 oz of gold in the three months ended July – the first quarter of its 2014 financial year.
Output was down slightly on the 31 503 oz produced in the previous quarter, but 74% higher than the 17 396 oz produced in the first quarter of the 2013 financial year.
The company produced 97 788 t of ore at a head grade of 0.3246 oz/t. The ore tonnage produced was a quarterly record, as was the average daily ore tonnage rate of 1 063 t.
Kirkland Lake stated that, despite the record ore tonnage rates, production for the quarter was impacted on by a number of planned shutdowns related to the work needed to increase the average mine hoisting capacity to 2 200 t a day, as well as to increase the capacity of the processing plant.
Work undertaken during the quarter included replacing the 10 t skips with 12.5 t skips, as well as work to optimise the existing mill grinding circuit and to bring the new crushing circuit on line.
The estimated impact of these shutdowns was two to three weeks of normal production over the quarter, which was slightly longer than expected. As a result, the production tonnage was 4.6% under planned production for the quarter.
Kirkland Lake warned that its processing plant would be impacted on by several more planned shutdowns throughout the 2014 financial year, as new equipment is brought on line.
The shutdowns were likely to affect the timing of production, but the gold miner was confident that it would not impact on overall production, with the company’s output guidance for the full year remaining at between 150 000 oz and 180 000 oz of gold.
Production is planned to increase quarterly over the course of the year, but the rate at which this occurs will be dependent on the rate at which the critical path activities are completed.