PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed gold miner Regis Resources on Tuesday told shareholders that its Garden Well mine, in Western Australia, had failed to deliver on production expectations for the three months ended December.

Gold production from Garden Well was forecast to reach between 40 000 oz and 45 000 oz during the quarter, but the project only delivered 37 206 oz. Regis said that the failure to meet expectations resulted from complexities around the tie-in and ramp-up of the Rosemont ore flow to the Garden Well wet plant.

For the full three months to December, Regis delivered 71 971 oz of gold, compared with the 69 878 oz delivered in the previous quarter.

The Rosemont mine, which was commissioned in October, produced 8 259 oz.

Regis noted that the combined throughput of Garden Well and Rosemont ores through the Garden Well wet plant was an effective 6.4-million tonnes a year during November and December, adding that the throughput of Rosemont ore through the slurry pipeline during the commissioning and ramp-up phase reached 1.6-million tonnes a year.

The ASX-listed miner said on Tuesday that it had become apparent that the current Garden Well mill configuration, prior to the completion of the Rosemont Stage 2 development, which was scheduled for April this year, was constrained to some degree at the current increased throughput rate in excess of six-million tonnes a year.

Modifications to the gravity circuit were completed in late November, but only had a limited impact on recovery during the quarter under review, as the circuit continued to be optimised, the company said.

It noted that with Rosemont now commissioned and on-line, the main focus at the two operations would be optimising the interim Garden Well plant configuration to maximise production until the leaching circuit could be completed in the June quarter.

The Garden Well project was expected to produce between 40 000 oz and 45 000 oz of gold during both the March and June quarters of this year.