Intrepid Mines Limited (IAU) has reported that its Western Australian gold mine, Paulsens, continues to improve production and contain costs.
The operation achieved a cash margin of A$1,000 an ounce last week.
In the eight weeks since 1 January 2009, the Paulsens mine has produced 15,000 ounces of gold and it is on track to produce more than 20,000 ounces in the March 2009 quarter.
Intrepid CEO Brad Gordon said today that with the increase in recent weeks in the Australian denominated gold price to A$1,550 an ounce, the Paulsens mine had achieved a cash margin of A$1,000 an ounce.
“A combination of factors, including the rise in the Australian dollar gold price, the closeout of our hedging position last year which means we get full value for our production, and a lift in production grades towards 12 grams per tonne allowed us to achieve a margin of $1,000 an ounce last week,” Gordon said.
“For an underground gold mine to have achieved such a strong performance — albeit for a week — is, I believe, exceptional and a very rare occurrence indeed.
“The gold price is out of our hands and whether we can maintain such margins is still to be seen, so the focus for the operations team at Paulsens remains on safe and efficient gold production.
“Our December quarter production costs of US$407 place us among the lowest third of world gold producers in relation to production costs.”
The Company’s year end results show the company has US$14.2 million cash in the bank as at 24 February 2009, and no debt or hedging.
“With the recent increase in gold prices, and more recently silver prices, the Company’s major development assets – the Casposo gold/silver project in Argentina and our copper/gold/silver Tujuh Bukit project in Indonesia – continue to grow in potential,” Gordon said.