Contango ore continues push for Strong Gold production
Contango this year.
To achieve this objective, the company is mobilizing crews to begin an underground drill campaign at its high-grade Lucky Shot gold project approximately 100 road miles north of Anchorage. This 15,000-meter drill program will involve completing roughly 500 shallow holes, each around 30 meters, to define and expand upon the high-grade resource at Lucky Shot. "We expect the drill program, along with underground development drill access, to take 12 to 18 months to complete," Van Nieuwenhuyse said. "From there, we will develop a mine plan that we will target delivering 30,000 to 40,000 ounces of gold production annually using our direct shipping ore (DSO) model." At Johnson Tract, a high-grade polymetallic gold project about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, Contango is currently working on gaining the permits needed to build a road from the camp to the site where the company plans to develop an exploration tunnel that will provide a platform for detailed under- ground drilling in preparation for completion of a feasibility study for establishing a mine at this 1-mill- lion-gold-equivalent-oz gold project near tidewater.
"Based on year-to-date results and projections going forward, we now expect cash distributions for 2025 from the Peak Gold JV to be in excess of $100 million, assuming a $3,500 per ounce spot gold price for the remainder of 2025," said Contango Ore President and CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse. "This higher-than-expected cash flow will be used to strengthen our cash position, reduce debt." With cash flowing from Manh Choh, coupled with a recently closed $50 million financing, Contango is looking at its next stage of direct shipping ore (DSO) gold production growth in Alaska. "With our recent financing, the company has a strong balance sheet to advance our two develop- ment-stage assets, Lucky Shot and Johnson Tract, to production decisions from internally generated cash flow," said Van Nieuwenhuse. "Our objective is to triple our production from its current 60,000 ounces annually to 200,000 gold equivalent ounces over the next five years."
upper end of its 2025 gold production guidance by more than 10%. After operating costs were subtract- ed, Contango received $33 million from the Peak Gold JV for its 30% share of production. Over the first three campaigns, the company has received $87 million in cash distributions from the JV. If gold prices remain strong, these cash contributions could total more than $110 million by year's end. In addition to the normal quarterly campaigns, the Peak Gold JV operated by Kinross is testing the viability of processing a blend of lower-grade oxide ore from Manh Choh with standard mill-grade ore mined at Fort Knox. If successful, this blending could result in additional gold production to the benefit of both partners. Any gold recovered during this test campaign would add an extra boost for
BY SHANE LASLEY Contango Ore Inc. has reported that the Peak Gold joint venture recovered approximately 56,800 ounces of gold from the third batch of 2025 ore from the Manh Choh mine fed through the Kinross Alaska mill – Contango's 30% share of this production comes in at roughly 17,000 oz, with the balance being attribut- ed to Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox mine. Each of the three Manh Choh ore processing cam- paigns completed so far this year has exceeded 50,000 oz gold production expectations. As a result, Contango's share of the gold produced from Manh Choh ore so far this year is around 52,000 oz. With one more campaign expected by the end of the year, Contango is on pace to top the 60,000 oz
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