OCEANA Gold Corp. is optimistic about achieving higher minerals production in the Philippines in the second half of the year with the introduction of new stope sequence and addition of new mining equipment.
OceanaGold is operating in the Philippines through Oceana Gold Philippines Inc. (OGP) which explores the Didipio copper and gold mine in Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino.
Peter Sharpe, OceanaGold executive vice president and chief operating officer for Asia-Pacific, said the Didipio mine is expected to produce up to 70,000 ounces (oz) of gold in the second half of 2024 compared from 50,000 oz in the first half for a total full-year gold production of at least 120,000 oz.
Sharpe said OGP is expected to produce at least 12,000 tons of copper in 2024. The company yielded 5,800 tons in the first half.
“We’ve got an underground optimization pre-feasibility study underway. One of the opportunities that we see at Didipio is the gold grade in the underground versus the stockpile. So, we’ve got about 20 million tons of ore underground and about the same on surface stockpile. We blend at the moment 60 percent of our surface stockpile into the mill and 40 percent from the underground,” Sharpe told reporters in a briefing in Makati City yesterday.
“The ore grade from the underground is four times the grade from our surface stockpile. So, there’s four times as much gold per ton of ore from underground as there is on surface stockpile. So, we’re working on a plan to actually change that mix of 60 percent stockpile, 40 percent underground to 60 percent underground, 40 percent stockpile,” Sharpe added.
OGP recorded a 39.7-percent decline in net income to $25.7 million in the first half of the year from $42.6 million in the same period last year due to lower gold and copper production.
Revenues dropped 11 percent to $160.9 million from last year’s $180.8 million.
