SCOTGOLD has flagged plans to ramp up the expansion of Cononish mine as well as exploring Grampian sites after more than doubling its headcount this year.

The country’s only commercial gold mining operation said it is looking forward to a “year of growth” in its first set of results under its new management team after Phil Day took over the role of chief executive when Richard Gray retired in April as managing director. Mr Gray stays as a non-executive director.

The firm said it aims to be a “mid-tier gold mining company with multiple operations”.

It said significant progress was made at Cononish in Argyll as the company targets production of 23,500 ounces of gold per annum by the first quarter of 2023.

It also said it believes production could continue for more than 18 years at the site, instead of around eight years.

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The company said that, as of August 2021, it has consistently achieved production revenues that exceed operational costs.

It posted a widened loss of $4.2 million against $2.7m in 2020, totally equity of $29m compared to $25m the previous year, and cash and cash equivalents at end of the year was at $2.6m against $1m the year before.

Equity funding raised included $5m from the issuing of 2,727,273 shares in October 2020, and $2.5m raised from the issuing of 2,142,857 shares in April 2021.

Scotgold said it has identified three prospective areas that are close to Cononish as high priority target points with data modelling in progress to establish the best sites to test ahead of potential future exploration drill programmes.

The AIM listed business said after exploration work undertaken at its option areas over the Dalradian Belt additional Grampian targets were identified with persuasive evidence for the presence of veins.

Mr Day said growth will be a key target factor in the year ahead. “Considerable progress has been made during 2021 at our flagship Cononish mine in Scotland, seeing us successfully ramp up production, in line with our accelerated expansion plan to achieve production of 23,500oz p.a. run rate of gold production by Q1 2023,” he said.

“Since joining as CEO in April 2021, with a newly appointed leadership team at the helm, we have been focused on building our foundations to accelerate growth for the future as Scotland’s first commercial gold mining company. We have done this on several fronts. Firstly, investing in the Scotgold team, with our headcount increasing 92% from 38 to 73 in December 2021 with the intention to grow our team further in 2022.

“Importantly we have focused on the optimisation of our processing plant and mine development plan to increase the production rate of both our gravity concentrate gold which produces gold doré for the Scottish jewellery market and our high-grade concentrate where we have an established off-take agreement.”

It also completed modifications and upgrades on the process plant and stocked up on spare parts, as well as forming strategic alliances with suppliers and engineering and fabrication shops in Scotland and around the UK.

“We’ve concentrated on de-bottlenecking and the availability of our process plant through maintenance practises,” said Mr Day.

Scotgold shares closed up almost 8%, or 5p, at 68p.