Centamin Plc has released a review of Sukari mine in Egypt, indicating the largest reserve growth in a decade. The firm said the increased reserve in excess of one million ounces at Sukari, its sole gold mine, underpins its plans to produce 500,000 ounces per annum of gold over the next 10 years. The company produced 452,320 ounces of gold in 2020.
The review of the mine, which experienced production challenges in October last year after a problem with stability in one of the open pit walls, also aimed at improving productivity. The company also provided a three-year outlook and expects to produce 450-500,000 ounces in 2024 with an estimated capital expenditure of $165 million. Centamin said a $100 million cost-savings programme has been increased by 50%, to be achieved by 2024.
Exploration
Shares of the FTSE midcap constituent were up 1% at 93.06 pence at 0814 GMT, outperforming a 0.3% rise in the wider index. Sukari is a low cost, bulk tonnage open pit and a high-grade underground operation, with significant exploration upside at depth and regionally, within the 160km2 tenement.
It is a gold mine located in the Nubian Desert/Eastern Desert near the Red Sea in Egypt, in the south-east of the country in the Red Sea Governorate, 30 km south of Marsa Alam. It is exploited jointly by the Egyptian Ministry of Mineral Resources and Centamin. It is Egypt’s first modern gold mine. Egypt was known in the ancient world as being a source of gold, and one of the earliest available maps shows a gold mine at this location.