Oz lowers gold output as it favours copper

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper/gold miner Oz Minerals has downgraded its gold expectations for the full 2016, following the blackout at its Prominent Hill mine, in South Australia, in September, and the preferential treatment of copper ore.

While the miner has previously warned that gold production would be at the lower end of its guidance of between 125 000 oz and 135 000 oz for the 2016 financial year, Oz Minerals on Friday revised this expected output to between 115 000 oz and 120 000 oz.

Despite the September power outage caused by a massive storm, and which resulted in 56 hours of lost production, gold production during the September quarter still reached 28 466 oz, which was only down slightly from the 30 099 oz reported in the previous quarter.

Copper production, in comparison, increased to 28 755 t, from 27 350 t produced in the previous quarter.

“It's positive that we’ve been able to hit copper guidance for the eighth successive quarter, given adverse weather and power interruptions,” said Oz Minerals CEO Andrew Cole.

He noted that since the power outage, the company had been in communication with the government regarding the outage and wider issues of ongoing power security, and was "encouraged" by the level of engagement to date.

“The last quarter has demonstrated the ability of the business to be agile in responding to unexpected events,” Cole said.

While openpit operations were unaffected during the power outage, underground ore production was restricted and processing was halted entirely until power was restored on October 13.

Despite this, Oz Minerals maintained its copper production guidance of between 115 000 t and 125 000 t for 2016.