Royal Gold Receives Operational Update from Mount Milligan
December 27 2017 - 4:05PM
Business Wire
Royal Gold, Inc. (NASDAQ: RGLD) (together with its
subsidiaries, “Royal Gold” or the “Company,” “we” or “our”) reports
that Centerra Gold (“Centerra”) today announced that, due to a lack
of sufficient water resources, mill processing operations at the
Mount Milligan mine in British Columbia, Canada have been
temporarily suspended. Centerra reports that there will be adequate
fresh water available to restart mill processing operations at
partial capacity by the end of January 2018 and at full capacity
after the spring melt, typically in April.
Calendar year-to-date Centerra reports that Mount Milligan has
produced approximately 225,000 ounces of payable gold and
approximately 54 million pounds of payable copper, slightly below
full year guidance. Royal Gold has a streaming interest on 35% of
the gold and 18.75% of the copper from Mount Milligan. Due to the
timing of shipments and deliveries of gold and copper, the impact
of this shutdown is likely to be reflected in Royal Gold’s
mid-calendar 2018 results.
Centerra reports that the water shortage at Mount Milligan has
been exacerbated by unanticipated extremely cold temperatures,
which has resulted in a greater than expected loss of water volumes
in the tailings storage facility due to ice formation. In the
fourth quarter of calendar 2017, Centerra noted that it sought to
mitigate the water shortfall by drilling additional water wells to
draw water from nearby aquifers located on the property. While such
wells were partially successful, Centerra reports that the
additional water obtained was not sufficient to offset the loss of
water volumes noted above. In addition, as a further, longer-term
mitigation measure, Centerra is pursuing an amendment to Mount
Milligan’s Environmental Assessment (EA) to allow pumping of water
from a nearby lake (Phillips Lake) and is applying for the
additional related permits. Centerra expects that by the end of
January 2018 there will be adequate fresh water available to
restart mill processing operations utilizing just one of the mine’s
two ball mills (38,000 tonnes per day to minimize water
requirements), returning to full capacity of two ball mills
following the spring melt.
However, as Centerra noted, the availability of water is subject
to, among other things, natural forces that can be unpredictable.
During this downtime, Centerra announced that mill maintenance
crews will continue to carry out outstanding preventative
maintenance activities and will look to bring forward other
maintenance work that had been planned for later in the year.
Centerra reports that Mount Milligan continues to operate according
to its mine plan and will continue to expose, mine and stockpile
additional ores for future processing.
CORPORATE PROFILE
Royal Gold is a precious metals stream and royalty company
engaged in the acquisition and management of precious metal
streams, royalties and similar production based interests. The
Company owns interests on 196 properties on six continents,
including interests on 39 producing mines and 23 development stage
projects. Royal Gold is publicly traded on the NASDAQ Global Select
Market under the symbol “RGLD.” The Company’s website is located at
www.royalgold.com.
Cautionary “Safe Harbor” Statement Under the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of
historical matters, the matters discussed in this press release are
forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties
that could cause actual results to differ materially from
projections or estimates contained herein. Such forward-looking
statements include statements about Centerra’s statements regarding
availability of water sources for Mount Milligan operations,
re-starting partial or full operations at Mount Milligan, and
future production at Mount Milligan, and our statements about the
impact of operational issues at Mount Milligan on Royal Gold’s
results and the likely timing of such impact, and other factors
described in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly
Reports on Form 10-Q, and other filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. Most of these factors are beyond the Company’s
ability to predict or control. The Company disclaims any obligation
to update any forward-looking statement made herein. Readers are
cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking
statements.
Statement Regarding Third-Party Information: Certain
information provided in this press release, including production
estimates, has been provided to us by the Centerra as the operator
of the relevant property or is publicly available information filed
by this operator with applicable securities regulatory bodies,
including the Securities and Exchange Commission. Royal Gold has
not verified, and is not in a position to verify, and expressly
disclaims any responsibility for, the accuracy, completeness or
fairness of such third-party information and refers the reader to
the public reports filed by the operators for information regarding
those properties.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171227005483/en/
Royal GoldKarli Anderson, 303-575-6517Vice President
Investor Relations
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