Photo credit: K92 Mining Inc.
K92 Mining Inc. is pleased to announce financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2021.
John Lewins, K92 Chief Executive Officer and Director, stated, “Despite 2021 being one of the most challenging years our Company has faced due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has also featured numerous major accomplishments, setting the operation up for a very promising near and long-term.
On production, the processing plant achieved Stage 2 Expansion run-rate throughput in September averaging 1,100 tpd. Importantly, the plant delivered a notably finer than required grind size and also set multiple daily records well in excess of the 1,100 tpd design. This has continued in October, with a new daily record of 1,538 tonnes processed on October 24, 2021. The strong performance of the process plant, resulted in the approval of a Stage 2A Expansion, which is expected to increase throughput a further +25% to 500,000 tpa. Commissioning is expected in Q3 2022, with a low estimated plant expansion capital cost of US$2.5 million. The expansion is expected to provide a considerable boost to our ability to self-fund the Stage 3 Expansion.
Operations are also expected to get a considerable boost via the commencement of a new mining front at the Judd Vein System. Long-hole drilling is underway and production stoping is planned to commence this quarter. The proximal location of Judd to much of Kora’s mine-infrastructure, makes for low cost and highly efficient mining and exploration of the system.
On exploration, we are now at a major inflection point, where the vast majority of activities will be focused on resource growth, as infill drilling is complete at Kora for its resource update later this year. The resource update due in Q4 will underpin the Stage 3 Expansion Definitive Feasibility Study in the first half of 2022. A majority of underground drill rigs have now commenced drilling at Judd, and we plan to increase this further. On surface, drilling for the first time is underway at Kora South, significantly increasing our ability to step-out along strike. And, drilling at Blue Lake is also progressing and with the backlog of holes to assay and core-log at Kora and Judd almost complete, we expect to provide an update in the near future.
On COVID-19, our pandemic resiliency continues to improve. The vaccination roll-out has made considerable progress with over 55% of our workforce having received at least their first dose. As our vaccination uptake increases, we expect to progressively ease other COVID-19 mitigation measures. International travel restrictions have also begun to considerably ease, particularly within parts of Australia, enabling more efficient personnel movement. Importantly, this has enabled access to specialized project contractors, in most cases for the first time since the pandemic began, to provide additional operational support and also commence several highly accretive projects near-term, including the commissioning of the gravity circuit for the Stage 2 Expansion.
Lastly, once again, I would like to thank the workforce at the Kainantu Gold Mine. Their dedication and resourcefulness have been extraordinary. The support of the Government of Papua New Guinea and also the Government of Australia continues to be a major factor in our success as well .”
Article Courtesy of K92 Mining Inc.
