News

November 19, 2008

After A Turbulent Twelve Months, Kingsgate Consolidated Gets Down To The Business Of Producing Gold Profitably

By Our Man in Oz

Christmas nears, the time to write a letter to Santa, and it’s a fair bet that shareholders in Kingsgate Consolidated will be making a most unusual request. They want life to become a little less exciting. Over the past 12 months the Australian-based gold miner with assets in Thailand has been forced to mine low-grade remnant ore at the flagship Chatree mine, while a government approvals process was overtaken by passing snails and a long-awaited expansion was delayed, and while curious games were being played by speculators with the company’s shares on the Australian Securities Exchange. If excitement was what anyone wanted this year, then Kingsgate was the place to be as its shares rollercoastered between a high of A$6.30 and a low of A$2.20 – and management prayed for 2008 to end.

That wish will be granted in little more than a month, with 2009 now shaping up as a time when Kingsgate will re-set its clock. Gone will be horror quarters such as the three months to 30th September when only 4,203 ounces of gold were produced at a staggering US$1,499 an ounce - awfully close to double the price received. As normality returns, Kingsgate will be able to talk much more about a production cost closer to US$350 per ounce, rising output as higher grade ore is mined, a return to the...