News

June 11, 2009

With Over $260 Million In The Bank And Production Steady At Over 150,000 Ounces Per Year, Things Are Looking Up For Highland Gold

By Alastair Ford

The strapline at the top of Highland Gold’s website reads: “Bringing Russia’s Gold To Market”. That’s not been as easy to deliver on as one might have imagined over the years for Highland. But with the US$105 million sale of the increasingly unwieldy Mayskoye project in April, and with the appointment of new management, it looks as though the company might be about to embark on a new, happier, chapter in its story. And to be fair, in the year to 31st December 2008, Highland did produce just under 160,000 ounces of gold, slightly up on the 2007 number, so it is, and has been, bringing Russia’s gold to market for a little while now. The tricky part has been to generate any significant and sustainable growth opportunities.

Highland’s entire output currently comes from its MNV mine, located in the Khabarovsk region in Russia’s Far East. And, with MNV in support, for many a long year the upside in the company lay in the potential development of the Mayskoye gold project in Chukotka, also in the Far East. But in the end the upside at Mayskoey proved to be so big that the project ran away with itself, and stopped looking like a worthwhile exercise for Highland to undertake. Just 12 months ago the company was looking...