Former gold producer Range River Gold (ASX: RNG) is aiming to get back into production to the tune of 40,000 ounces of gold per annum at its Mt Morgans project in Western Australia.
With the top shareholders of Range, reading like a who's who in Australia, John Calvert Jones owns 17.2%, Barrick Australia at 16.9%, and Owen Hegarty at 4.9%, an investor could do worse than follow the money.
The announcement today by Range of an increase in production from 30,000 ounces - 40,000 ounces per annum, was enough to push the stock up by 15%.
That, plus the news that production is on track to commence in calendar year 2010. It hasn't always been clear sailing for Range, with the issues at the Indee gold mine in Western Australia.
The Transvaal deposit at Mt Morgan will be the major source of the increase in production, with a mine life of over five years. Other deposits will contribute to the production plan.
For investors, one of the key elements of the mine plan for Mt Morgans has to be that capital expenditure will be low. This is base based on mining and selling the ore to under-utilised mills in the Mt Morgan area. So, only minor set up capital will be required.
As well as that, Range will soon kick-off a significant exploration program of down plunge and repeat opportunities at the Craic, Ramornie and Transvaal deposits.
Not long after that, greenfields exploration of 21 km of the Range's tenements that has not been subject to recent and modern exploration. These are extremely interesting times for Range holders, large and small.
And many of them have done very nicely. Range undertook a placement, only last month, of $6 million at 1.6 cents per share to fund Mt Morgan development. With the share price at 3 cents today, that's a tidy 87% profit for investors who jumped on-board.