Turquoise Hill Resources has flagged a big improvement in gold-copper production from its 66%-owned Oyu Tolgoi project in the S Gobi region of Mongolia in the current Dec 2021 (FY/CY 21) year after FY/CY 20 gold-in-conc output fell to 181,858oz from FY/CY19’s 242,00oz, but with copper up to 149,631t from 146,300t and silver to 876,00oz from 867,00oz.
The FY/CY20 result was on mill throughput slipping to 40.2Mt from 40.77Mt due to the processing of more, harder Phase-4B ore. Copper-in-conc sales were down to 137,800t from 149,900t, gold to 150,000oz from 274,000oz and silver to 760,000oz from 896,000ozoz.
But the 66% Rio Tinto-owned company is expecting Oyu Tolgoi to produce 500,000oz-550,000oz gold-in-conc in FY/CY 21 and 160,000t-180,000t of copper from processing of both open pit and underground development material. FY/CY 21 cash costs are expected to be in the range of negative $US0.50/lb copper produced to negative $0.80/lb. Access to higher copper and gold grades in Q4 20 is expected to continue throughout FY/CY 21.