K92 MINING NM ARTICLE 2021-01-20
K92 Mining expects growth of 16-36% in 2021
Michael McCrae Wednesday January 20, 2021 22:48
Kitco News
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Papua New Guinea miner K92 Mining said today it expects to grow 16-36% year over year with gold equivalent (“AuEq”) production of between 115,000 and 135,000 ounces.
The company released its operational outlook.
Cash costs will be between $515-565 per ounce gold and all-in sustaining costs are between $825-$875 per ounce gold.
The company said exploration will increases significantly with expenditures of $14-17 million projected in 2021. During the course of 2020, the drill rig fleet doubled to ten drill rigs. Our eleventh drill rig is expected to arrive on site imminently.
Capital costs are forecasted to be between $25-$30 million, which includes the ongoing twin incline development designed for up to 2 million tonnes per annum throughput or 3 million tonnes per annum throughput with conveyors.
John Lewins, K92 Chief Executive Officer and Director, stated, “2020 was certainly a very strong year for K92, with year-over-year production growth of 20%; significant exploration progress on multiple vein systems; increases of +180% and +50% in Kora’s M&I and inferred resource estimates, respectively, and; completion of our Stage 3 Expansion PEA outlining Tier 1 Asset potential of +318,000 oz AuEq run-rate. In addition, the quality and importance of Kora has been recognized, with K92 being awarded the prestigious Thayer Lindsley Award for Best Global Discovery from the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) for Kora North. Importantly, all of these milestones were achieved during the COVID-19 pandemic and were made possible due to the extraordinary commitment of our workforce, exceptional resource at Kora and also the support of Government in Papua New Guinea on all levels.
While we expect the COVID-19 environment to persist through the majority of 2021, we believe 2021 has the potential to continue the growth of our company as we further expand production at Kainantu, significantly ramp-up exploration on multiple vein and porphyry targets, and complete our next resource update and Stage 3 Definitive Feasibility Study in the second half of 2020. We believe the future for Kainantu and K92 looks very exciting.”
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