A “major step change” in production at Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s Super Pit and associated operations is key to Northern Star Resources’ drive towards churning out 2 million ounces of gold in the 2025-26 financial year.
Northern Star managing director and chief executive Stuart Tonkin on Thursday said the company had locked in a “mine sequence” that would lift Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines from 450,000 ounces per annum to 650,000ozpa in FY26.
However, Mr Tonkin said this was just a “checkpoint” on the path to 900,000oz in FY29 as the five-year, $1.5 billion Fimiston mill expansion project kicked in to deliver throughput of 27 million tonnes per annum, up from the current 13Mtpa, and make KCGM a “top-five global gold mine”.
He said the KCGM surge this financial year would be driven by material from the Golden Pike grade from the bottom of the Super Pit, as well as growth out of the Mt Charlotte and Fimiston underground mines being brought into the feed stock.
“The backstop is always the low-grade stockpile … (as a group) we have 3.5Moz in stockpile in and around our processing facilities, and the majority of that is at KCGM,” he said.
“We’ve got years and years and years ahead of security of supply.”
Northern Star’s group guidance for 2024-25 is 1.65Moz-1.8Moz at an all-in-sustaining cost of $1850/oz-$2100/oz.
The company said gold sold would be weighted towards the second half of this financial year as a result of the increased production from higher grades at KCGM and improved mill availability at Thunderbox and Pogo.
In order to reach the five-year strategic plan target of 2Moz in FY26, Mr Tonkin said the final piece was the “grade coming from Golden Pike” lifting KCGM to 650,000ozpa — complemented by the other assets producing at a “steady state”.
“So Pogo at 300,(000oz), Yandal at 600,(000oz) and obviously the balance being Kalgoorlie, but KCGM is the major step change in that last year,” he said.
Northern Star also released its June quarter and FY24 results on Thursday — the figures showed the company met full-year guidance by producing 1.62Moz at an AISC of $1853/oz, with the Kalgoorlie production centre (851,000oz at $1701/oz) and Pogo in Alaska (278,000oz at $2037/oz) hitting their targets.
However, the Yandal production centre in the northern Goldfields lagged, producing 491,000oz in 2023-24, short of guidance of 500,000oz-570,000oz, at an AISC of $2012/oz, above guidance of $1930/oz-$1960/oz.
Mr Tonkin said the extremely wet weather in the northern Goldfields early this year was the key hinderance.
“The northern Goldfields were flooded for a large part of that (time) so a lot of the haulage of open-pit material to mills was substantially impacted across the gold sector,” he said.
“We lost stockpiles that were close to our mills throughout that period which were obviously at different grades to our primary plan but we were able to keep going through that.”
He said a secondary factor was throughput issues at the Thunderbox mill, which had since been resolved, with nameplate 6Mpta output achieved in the June quarter.
The Jundee mill was also shut down for 10 days in the June quarter when a fire ripped through the gold room.
Northern Star chief operating officer Simon Jessop said the fire was caused by a scrubber unit at the back of the room.
“When you look at it, it’s a very small piece of equipment and the team did a great job in containing that (fire) in about an hour-and-a-half but in that part of the plant there’s a lot of electrical cables so it took some time to rectify,” he said.
However, Mr Tonkin noted that while Yandal had a “lighter year”, the company’s diverse portfolio allowed it to achieve its overall production goals.
“That is the strength and beauty of having diversification of production centres, flex in the business plan, contingency of production sources … we’re able to … deliver into that guidance as a group,” he said.