OceanaGold Corp. expects the gold output of its copper-gold mine in Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya to exceed the original guidance range this year.
OceanaGold operates in the Philippines through subsidiary, OceanaGold Philippines Inc. (OGPI).
In a statement, OceanaGold said Didipio’s full-year gold production guidance has been increased by 8 percent to 135,000 ounces from 125,000 ounces.
However, its copper production guidance was unchanged at 12,000 tons to 14,000 tons for this year.
Gerard Bond, OceanaGold president and chief executive officer, said the performance of the Didipio mine is among several factors that helped the company be “on track to meet the low-end of our full-year consolidated production guidance range.”
The company has also extended the known mineralization of the Didipio mine at approximately 100 meters below the existing resource, Bond added, but no further details were provided.
For the first nine months of the year, OceanaGold said the Didipio mine produced 95,700 ounces of gold, up by 13.8 percent from the 84,100 ounces produced for the similar period last year.
The Nueva Vizcaya mine also produced 10,300 tons of copper nine months into the year, lower by 5.5 percent from the 10,900 tons produced in the same period in 2022.
Based on data from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, OGPI is among the country’s top gold producers. As of the first half of the year, it produced 1,828 kilograms or 12 percent of the 15,102 kg total gold produced in the country for the period.
For the similar period, OGPI also produced a total of 30,763 dry metric tons (DMT) of copper, or 23 percent of the 133,072 DMT total copper production in the country.
Last year, OceanaGold said OGPI has other prospects in the Philippines, but focus remains on the Didipio mine at the moment.
