THE chief executive of the company mining for gold in Argyll has declared it is “now on the correct growth trajectory to realise the full potential” of the site at Cononish, near Tyndrum.
Scotgold revealed that production revenues had exceeded operational costs for a second consecutive month in September.
It said today it had produced 62 tonnes of gold concentrate during September, up by 24% from 50 tonnes in August.
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Phil Day, chief executive of Scotgold, said: "The operational turnaround at Cononish continues to gain pace and we are really encouraged by the performance of the mine and the overall improvement in our production profile. Importantly, September marked our second month where production revenues exceeded operational costs and we are confident that we are now on the correct growth trajectory to realise the full potential of Cononish."
Scotgold said:“In parallel with improving revenue figures, Scotgold also completed a cost base optimisation which focused on removing inefficiency such as use of external contractors and reducing fixed costs.
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“The HR team had a successful month onboarding new members of the operational team exactly in line with expectations and supports continuous 24-hour operation for the mine and process plant.”
Updating on operations at the site, Scotgold added: "The process plant is continuing to operate encouragingly, and the team is focusing on achieving more consistent runtime to allow for increased production. The current barrier to achieving higher throughputs relates to the quartz in the ore, which causes higher wear on certain parts of the process plant. The Scotgold team is capitalising on this information to fine tune the intervals for replacing various wear parts and as such, the management expects that the change-outs will become more scheduled using the company's planned maintenance system which will result in higher throughput per month."
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