LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - GoldStone Resources updated the market on activities at the Homase mine and the former Akrokeri underground mine on Friday, confirming that following the start of gold production at Homase, 1,717 troy ounces had been produced and sold to-date.
The AIM-traded firm said it had realised an average price of $1,907 per ounce on that gold.

Gold loan repayments from first gold of $1.1m had been made, through the delivery of 610 troy ounces to Asia Investments Management Services (AIMS), resulting in the interest rate being taken out of default.

Construction was completed for the initial stage of the mine, which included the crushing, sizing, agglomeration and stacking unit, three heap leach pads, a carbon-in-column plant, and an elution and gold room, for a total investment of $15m including overheads.

Start-up agglomeration issues had been resolved, and gold recovery from the heap leach pads increased to over 65%, with the latest in-situ test work indicating that leach recovery of 82% would be achieved over a 12-month period.

An additional crushing, agglomeration and stacking circuit was currently being built to improve productivity and heap stacking flexibility, using existing cash resources.

GoldStone said it had a 2022 production target of around 20,000 ounces of gold.

Homase was continuing to progress its capital-efficient mine, the company reported, with a cash cost of around $840 per ounce pencilled in for the rest of 2022, and an all-in sustaining cost of $970 per ounce.

On the exploration front, GoldStone said it was "ramping up" within the Homase and Akrokeri licences, with diamond drilling set to start around the Akrokeri underground mine in 2022.

Grade control drilling, meanwhile, was now underway at the third pit along the Homase trend.

"Starting a new gold mine is never easy, and the team on site has worked tirelessly to achieve Homase's full potential to benefit our patient shareholders," said chief executive officer Emma Priestley.

"I am pleased to report that our efforts over the past few months have brought us to an important turning point in the evolution of our production process.

"Our team has re-engineered the mine and heap leach, focussing on enhancing production efficiencies and supervision to minimise dilution and improve gold recovery."

Priestley said the turnaround supported its previously-announced production target for 2022, and would provide a "very solid foundation" for production growth in the coming years.

"Looking forward to the longer-term delivery of our growth objectives, Akrokeri remains a key pillar of our strategy with a drill and trench programme finally underway - we look forward to developing the exploration in the coming weeks.

"As shareholders will recall, Akrokeri is a previously producing mine with demarcated targets for future shallow open pit mining, which we are confident will lead to future growth of production."

At 1116 GMT, shares in GoldStone Resources were up 30.5% at 10.44p.

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