By Ian McConnell
THE company behind the Cononish gold mine near Tyndrum in Argyll flagged its growth ambitions yesterday as it unveiled revenues of A$6.4 million (£3.65m) for the first half of its financial year.
Scotgold Resources, which has been ramping up activity at Cononish after spending years working on the prospect, had no revenue in its previous first half to December 2020.
The company posted a pre-tax loss of A$5.3m (£3.03m) for the six months to December 31, 2021. It made a pre-tax loss of A$2.8m (£1.6m) in the first half of its prior financial year.
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Scotgold flagged its targeting of a gold production run rate of around 23,500 ounces per annum by the end of the first quarter of 2023. It noted it had in the October to December 2021 quarter produced 1,508 ounces of gold and 7,200 ounces of silver from Cononish.
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Chairman Peter Hetherington highlighted a “vision” to “build a multi-asset gold production company in Scotland”. He said: “We have 13 licences covering a significant 2,900 [square-kilometre] position of the Dalradian Belt and have identified three prospective areas, close to Cononish. It’s our intention to explore these as part of our wider growth strategy.”
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Mr Hetherington noted that, at December 31, Scotgold had 73 employees. Mr Hetherington added the workforce had increased by 27% to 93 employees by February 28, and declared: “We have ambitious growth plans to continue to increase our headcount during 2022.”
Chief executive Phil Day said: “The second half of calendar year 2021 saw us lay the foundations for growth by implementing initiatives to increase Cononish’s gold recoveries and in turn improve the gold production profile of the mine. During the past quarter we have been focused on preparing the access to the second cut and fill stope at Cononish and I’m pleased to report we accessed it as of 21 March. This is a pivotal moment in our mine development plan...which should see our gold grades increase significantly.”
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