Lihir Gold Limited
Lihir Gold pondering future of Ballarat Goldfields
A sobering report by Lihir Gold (ASX: LGL, TSX: LGG; Nasdaq ADR: LIHRY) yesterday prompted the Australian business media today to question the future of the company's Ballarat operations.
Lihir and the absorbed Ballarat Goldfields reportedly ploughed more than $A1 billion ($US797 M) into developing a new operation, essentially below and lateral to the historic Ballarat mines which from the mid 1800s until mothballs in 1918 had total recorded production of 20.59 million ounces.
Yesterday Lihir Gold gave the good news, that group production driven mainly by the Lihir Island mine off Papua New Guinea, had produced 510,000 oz for the first five months of calendar 2009, with the company on track to produce between 1.04 M and 1.2 M oz this year.
However, major infrastructure and development work at Ballarat led to a downgrading of this year's target at that operation to only 20,000 oz.
"Longer term annual production at Ballarat is now anticipated to be in the range of 80,000-100,000 oz, and is dependent on a successful drilling and development programme in the northern zone," the company said.
The company will take an impairment charge against earnings in the current half year in the range of $US250-350 M after tax.
Over the past 18 months the re-development of the Ballarat workings within the city of Ballarat has been an exercise in backpedalling, and only a few months ago company chairman Arthur Hood reportedly said Ballarat was going to produce 150,000 oz per annum.
It is an investment that puzzled many analysts back in late 2006, given that the then Ballarat Goldfields and predecessors back to the 1980s had struggled to make great progress, with earlier versions of the company suffering the ignominy of a collapse of more than one shaft development.
Today's Melbourne Age newspaper quoted Hood as saying what had changed the picture was that some of the central and southern zones of the mine were not delivering target production, so output would be restricted to 20,000 oz as development focuses on the northern zone.
There would not, he said, be any further staff cuts beyond the 200 job loss announced in April.
Mineweb is a web-based international mining publication focusing on mining financial and corporate news and comment.
Other Lihir Gold Limited articles
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19/02/10 The burden of Ballarat takes the shine off Lihir mine performance
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25/01/10 Tier 1 gold miner Lihir Gold joins ranks of 1 million oz/year producers
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20/01/10 Shares up as Lihir Gold starts trawling for new CEO
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27/08/09 Lihir Gold more than doubles H1 underlying earnings, ups gold resources
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31/07/09 Lihir Gold reports record output despite underperforming Ballarat Mine
Other Lihir Gold Limited news
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01/03/10 Lihir Gold eyes 50% increase in gold production by 2012
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30/10/09 Lihir Gold increases its gold reserves base to 28.8m ounces
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26/08/09 Lihir Gold cash costs improve, profits jump, and measured and indicated resources climb
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21/07/09 Lihir Gold to sell Ballarat mine
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16/06/09 Lihir Gold cuts Ballarat output target, will take massive charge in first half
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14/04/09 Lihir Gold cutting costs at Ballarat mine, Victoria
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