Genesis Minerals expected to release expansion plans for Leonora

Company News

by Glenn Dyer


Time for gold miner, Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD) to put up and show the market that it does have a viable growth plan for the next five years, as it has been promising for quite a while.

In fact the company has been talking about it for around a year; it has made a big selling point to the market on how its focused on ‘margin over ounces’ as it puts together the assets to back a plan to boost production to more than 300,000 ounces a year in profitable and cost effective way.

Now, next Monday it says it will reveal that plan to use the hard won Leonora assets of St Barbara as the cornerstone for the expansion in output planned for the next five years.

The release of the five-year strategy will include updated reserves and resources plus production and cost guidance for the June half year and projections for 2024-25.

The St Barbara’s Leonora gold assets includes the high-grade Gwalia underground mine and 1.4 million tonnes a year Leonora mill, and prospects including the Tower Hill and Zoroastrian projects adding to the already existing Genesis projects.

The new Admiral and Ulysses developments have been paired and added to output of the Gwalia mine to fill the Leonora mill and get greater cost efficiencies. ore from the Admiral open pit was first delivered in September of last year and the Ulysses underground mine was to be reading fpr development this quarter.

The key to the plan is the Gwalia deeps project which is exploiting a series of five lodes under the existing mine.

Genesis announced the results of a drilling program at Gwalia in September, which confirmed via multiple high-grade drill results confirm Gwalia’s status as a world class gold system.

These results and lift to reserves and planned production will form the core of the five year plan.

At June 30, 2023, GMD reported Gwalia’s Resources and Reserves at 5.5 million ounces and 2.0 million ounces, respectively.

The company said the latest drilling had confirmed what it termed a “heart of gold” at Gwalia, as "drilling confirms the presence of a consistent high-grade core at the Gwalia underground mine.

GMD said the results of the infill drilling underpin "the next 7 years of mine production.”

The company said it had no debt and more than $190 million in cash at the end of December. That’s gives GMD the financial room to lay down the plan and follow it.

Glenn Dyer

Glenn Dyer has been a finance journalist and TV producer for more than 40 years. He has worked at Maxwell Newton Publications, Queensland Newspapers, AAP, The Australian Financial Review, The Nine Network and Crikey.

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