The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Grades, milling, recoveries all increase during third quarter North of 60 Mining News – October 30, 2020
Northern Star Resources poured 53,810 ounces of gold at its Pogo Mine in Alaska during the third quarter of 2020.
Northern Star Resources Ltd. Oct. 27 reported that its Pogo Mine in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District produced 53,810 ounces of gold during the third quarter of 2020, a 9% increase over the 49,353 oz recovered during the previous quarter.
The increased gold production is the result of slight improvements in ore grades, mill throughput, and ore recoveries.
The average grade of ore mined during the third quarter was 8.9 grams per metric ton, which is about 6% higher than the quarter ending in June. The company fed 208,916 metric tons of this ore through the mill during the third quarter, which is about 3% more than the previous quarter. The mill also recovered 90% of the gold fed into it, which is slightly better than the 89% recovery during the previous three months.
As a result of these improvements, the all-in sustaining cost per ounce of Pogo gold sold during the third quarter was US$1,199, compared to US$1,275/oz during the second quarter of 2020.
"We are also delighted with the results at Pogo, which continued to improve on every metric as the benefits of the new bulk mining method and other changes we have introduced flow through," said Northern Star Resources Executive Chairman Bill Beament. "Costs for the quarter are 14.5% lower than in FY20 (fiscal year 2020, which ended on June 30) and the project is generating strong free cashflow."
Despite the improvements, Northern Star says the Pogo Mine continued to be impacted by COVID-19 during the September quarter. These pandemic-related impacts included the impediment of the flow of personnel and materials to the Pogo operations.
The Australian company, however, said the focus from Pogo personnel has been fantastic ensuring that any direct COVID illness or suspected illness is being managed very well and any wider impacts significantly minimized.
Underground diamond drilling activity within the mine area increased steadily across the quarter with improved productivity and COVID-19 protocols in place.
Underground drilling remained focused on production and reserve definition drilling across all the major production areas with results generally within expectations. In addition, excellent intersections were recorded from numerous unmodelled structures, particularly in the Leise 2 and South Pogo areas.
Northern Star also restarted surface exploration at Pogo late in the third quarter with in-fill resource definition drilling focused on the eastern end of the newly discovered Goodpaster deposit area north of the current mine.
A regional heliborne aeromagnetic survey was completed over Ink, Fog and Skippy, gold exploration properties across the wider Goodpaster Mining District that Northern Star acquired from Stone Boy Inc., which is owned by subsidiaries of Sumitomo Metal Mining (95%) and Sumitomo Corp. (5%).
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
Reader Comments(0)