Mineral Hill gold production hits another high for Kingston Resources
At Mineral Hill, Kingston Resources achieved a record 1,138oz of gold production in July and beat this in August with 1,203oz.
Kingston Resources’ (ASX: KSN) Mineral Hill development in New South Wales delivered a strong performance during January with a record-high production from the tailings storage facility (TSF) project of 1,457 ounces of gold.
Reconciled processing recovery for the month also broke records, increasing to 64.8% from 58.5% recorded for December.
All-in-sustaining costs (AISC) for January were $1,611 per ounce while the gold price received for the month was $2,725/oz.
Outstanding achievement
Kingston managing director Andrew Corbett said the monthly results are an “outstanding achievement” for the company.
“We are particularly excited about the improving recoveries and the operations team’s laser focus on operating costs to fight industry-wide inflation,” he said.
“Our ability to optimise the plant’s performance gives us a lot of confidence on production for the remainder of the TSF project and in our transition to hard rock mining.”
Mr Corbett said the TSF project gives Kingston a “unique point of difference” by providing cashflow while it builds out a life-of-mine (LOM) inventory.
“Our geology and engineering teams have been making good progress on finalising resource and reserve updates for our anticipated hard rock mining phase our technical and financial analysis of the LOM plans are now well advanced,” he said.
Month-on-month highs
Kingston continues to record month-on-month production highs at Mineral Hill.
In December, the company generated 1,347oz of gold – up from a peak of 1,339oz in October last year.
The gold was produced at an AISC of $1,607/oz, with 1,217oz sold at an average of $2,678/oz.
A reconciliation at the end of November also produced a “near identical” comparison (mineral resource to processing plant feed) – providing “huge confidence” in the resource and reserve models for the TSF.
Development plan
Kingston expects to continue processing tailings at Mineral Hill into 2024.
The company’s development plan will then take it across to the Pearse South and Pearse North open pits, followed by the Southern Ore Zone (SOZ) underground operation.
Other open pit targets at Jacks Hut, Missing Link and Parkers Hill are also on the radar.
Resources for Mineral Hill currently total 7.28 million tonnes at 1.1 grams per tonne gold, 24g/t silver, 0.8% copper, 1.4% lead and 1% zinc for 258,000oz gold, 5.5 million ounces silver, 57,000t copper, 100,000t lead and 71,000t zinc.