Photo credit: St Barbara
St Barbara Managing Director and CEO Craig Jetson said, “St Barbara has finished the year strongly, achieving both our production and cost guidance at a site and group level for FY22. Against the headwinds of cost inflation and COVID-19 impacts on our workforce availability as well as associated travel restrictions this is a rewarding result. It was achieved with improved safety performance with a lower TRIFR of 3.4 injuries per million hours worked.
Today we announce a further increase to our extensive Mineral Resource base in the Leonora province with the release of our inaugural Mineral Resource for Old South Gwalia. This initial Mineral Resource is the first instalment from Old South Gwalia from between 600 metres below surface down to 1000 metres below surface. Further resource extension drilling is planned for the coming year to grow a productive new mining front at Gwalia.
Management's focus on Gwalia and the Leonora province plan is generating early rewards with expansion of Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves and our expanded footprint across the region. We continue to execute our Leonora Province Plan. St Barbara is central to any regional consolidation with the largest Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve base in the Leonora region, a host of near term growth options, growing production from the new Zoroastrian underground mine and a cash generating processing facility which is expected to increase its processing capacity by 50% to 2.1mtpa. Following our acquisition of Bardoc, the assets have been promptly assimilated with Zoroastrian on track for first ore at the start of FY24.
Our development of the Leonora Province has provided invaluable insights that we are now applying in considering alternative pathways for scheduling our Atlantic Province projects, together with plans to maintain production at the Touquoy mine. With travel restrictions lifted, we have strengthened our relationships with the Government and First Nations people in Nova Scotia. In collaboration with the Government, a new permitting approach has commenced and has already yielded promising results with two permits already granted. These results provide encouragement that outstanding permitting issues can be addressed and the potential of Atlantic can be realised. Furthermore, our decision to place Simberi Operations under strategic review is aligned with our clear focus on leveraging the highest value options for the St Barbara Group.
We have made progress on plans to consolidate our corporate offices as we strive to deliver the appropriate level of support for our sites and optimise our cost base. Having already identified $5 million in ongoing cost reduction we have an aspiration to increase cost savings to $10 million in FY23 with a further $10 million in FY24.”
The full report can be found HERE
