CALEDONIA Mining Corporation narrowed full year guidance for 2021 to the top end of 65,000 to 67,000 ounce guidance following a strong third quarter.
Production for the three months ended September totalled a record 18,965 oz – a 25% increase on the corresponding quarter last year.
The company mines the Blanket mine which is situated in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland, about 140 kilometres south of Bulawayo.
“When we acquired Blanket from Kinross in 2006 our production in the third quarter of 2006 was 6,475 ounces – the company has come a long way since then,” said Steve Curtis, CEO of Caledonia Mining.
The Toronto-listed firm said today in an update that it was on track to grow annual production to 80,000 oz from next year. This would be achieved following the recent commissioning of its Central Shaft project at Blanket.
“The completion of Central Shaft and the resultant increase in production also means that we are able to execute other areas of our growth strategy such as the agreement to acquire Maligreen that we announced last month,” said Curtis.
Caledonia said in September it had bought the Maligreen project in the country’s Gweru district for $4m and would spend $1.6m more over the next 18 to 24 months exploring the brownfields prospect.
Maligreen has an inferred mineral resource of approximately 940,000 oz of gold. Two open pit mines on the prospect produced 20,000 oz of gold a year between 2000 and 2002 before they were closed.
In December 2020, the company announced it had bought a $2.5m option over a gold exploration prospect Glen Hulme, also in Gweru.
