The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Northern Star looks focused on continued increases in 2023 North of 60 Mining News – January 20, 2023
Northern Star Resources' Pogo Mine in Alaska produced 58,661 ounces of gold during the fourth quarter of 2022.
Surface drilling continues to cut high-grade gold mineralization outside the 1.1-million-oz Goodpaster gold deposit at Pogo.
Northern Star Resources Ltd. Jan. 19 reported a rebound in gold production and a drop in per-ounce production costs at its Pogo Mine in Alaska.
During the fourth quarter of the calendar year 2022, Pogo produced 58,661 oz of gold from 316,996 metric tons of ore averaging 6.6 grams per metric tons gold.
While the mill throughput during the final three months of 2022 was down slightly from the 319,433 metric tons processed during the third quarter, gold grades were roughly 8% higher than the 6.1 g/t average during the previous period. The higher-grade ore resulted in a corresponding 8% increase in gold production over the third quarter.
The increased production resulted in a drop in the cost to produce an ounce of gold at Pogo.
The all-in sustaining cost per ounce of Pogo gold sold during the December quarter was US$1,362, which is 14% lower than the US$1,581/oz of gold sold during the third quarter of last year.
The increased gold output and lower costs resulted in Pogo generating US$30 million in mining operation cash flow. With the US$10 million invested in growth capital, Northern Star's Alaska operation produced US$20 million in net mine cash flow.
"While it is very pleasing to see unit cost improve at Pogo and the operation generated mine operating cash flow of US30 million dollars in the quarter, we have more optimization work to do at Pogo in the remainder of the year," Northern Star Resources Managing Director Stuart Tonkin told investors during the company's quarterly conference call.
Early last year, Northern Star completed upgrades that expanded the mill throughput capacity to 1.3 million metric tons per year, a 30% increase over the previous 1-million-metric-ton-per-year capacity.
With the mill running at nearly this rate of 325,000 metric tons per quarter, the Pogo Mine team is focused on improving mined ore grades in order to achieve Northern Star's gold production targets for the Alaska operation.
"The second half focus at Pogo is improving mined grade to deliver a full year guidance," Tonkin said.
Northern Star's fiscal year 2023 production guidance for Pogo is 260,000 to 290,000 oz of gold. During the first six months of FY2023, which ends on June 30, the Alaska operation produced 112,991 oz of gold. To achieve this target, another 150,000 oz would need to be produced at Pogo over the next six months.
To accomplish this, the focus is on improving mill throughput grades closer to the Pogo reserve grades of 8.5 g/t gold.
As the production team works on improving mill grades and gold output, the exploration team continues to expand the Goodpaster deposit north of the current operation.
In May of last year, Northern Star announced that the Goodpaster discovery hosts 3.2 million metric tons averaging 10.3 g/t (1.1 million oz) gold.
The company says drills continue to cut high-grade gold on the margins of this inaugural resource.
"In Alaska, we continue to extend the Goodpaster deposit beyond the existing high-grade resource," Tonkin said.
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.
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