Production Woes Weigh on Gold Road

West African shares maiden Toega numbers + New Hope launches $100m buyback and a divvie

March 18, 2025

The Pre-Start

  • Gold Road provided a March Q update, with production to be below plans due to primary crusher maintenance & the failure of 2 conveyor belts. Output guided to 70-73koz (100% basis), with annual guidance unchanged (GOR) Down 4%

  • West African shared a maiden 560koz @ 3.5g/t resource for Toega (13km from Sanbrado), with a scoping study demonstrating underground mine production of 5.7Mt @ 2.8g/t for 515koz over 7 years. Pre-production capital came to US$42m, with the potential to take Sanbrado to 300kozpa (WAF)

  • New Hope first half saw it deliver net cash from operations of $317m, while announcing a 19c fully franked interim divvie & a $100m buyback (NHC) Up 7%

  • K92 Mining produced record 51.3koz gold, 958,312 lbs copper and 42.0 koz silver at their Kainantu mine in PNG in Q4 (KNT.TSX)

  • Founder Metals released further results from drilling at Van Gogh in Suriname, with a headline hit of 72m @ 2.29g/t from 177m (FDR.TSXV)

  • Sierra Metals gave 2025 EBITDA guidance of US$130m, while the board reiterated shareholders should reject Alpayana's hostile approach (SMT.TSX)

  • Baru Gold said its previously announced non-binding LoI for investment with Arsai Tambang will no go forward while a separate US$35m investment fell through, resulting in its stock falling 23% (BARU.TSXV)

  • Godolphin shared more Lewis Ponds assays, intersecting multiple mineralised zones outside the MRE, including 51.75m @ 1.81g/t AuEq from 276m (GRL)

  • Cygnus shared results from infill & exploration work at Chibougamau, with the Colline exploration target hitting 14.9m @ 2.9% CuEq from 157m (CY5)

  • Firebird was granted a mining lease for the Oakover Manganese project (FRB)

  • Aussie Super increased its stake in Woodside to 7.15% (WDS)

  • Aurelia NED Franklyn Brazil picked up almost $3m stock on-market (AMI)

High Grade It

  • WA is well-placed to weather erratic Trump policies according to the WA Chamber of Commerce’s economic outlook (West)

  • Rio has proposed to extend its Robe Valley iron ore ops in the Pilbara, which would require clearing of up to ~16,800 ha of land (BN)

  • Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis has endorsed Palliser’s resolution urging a review of Rio Tinto’s DLC structure at its coming AGM (Palliser)

  • Ora Banda’s largest shareholder, Hawke’s Point, trimmed its 31.4% stake last night, selling 90m shares at $1.08, leaving it with just under 500m shares (AFR)

  • The French gov’t asked EDF to accelerate efforts to build 6 new nuclear reactors while delaying the target start date for unit one by 3 years to 2038 (Bloomberg)

  • Stockpicker Angus Aitken gets aboard the Chris Ellison redemption train, while UBS also labels MinRes a buy (West)

  • ExxonMobil's Australian unit said that its Gippsland Basin JV with Woodside has approved its FID to develop the Turrum Phase 3 project, targeting underdeveloped gas resources, aiming to drill 5 new wells (Reuters)

  • BofA, Citi & Macquarie have been cheerleaders for gold during the ongoing rally that’s taken prices to over US$3,000/oz, and they’re still bullish (Bloomberg)

  • Cobalt produced by China's Lygend in Indonesia is reportedly skirting Trump’s tariffs and being sold into the US, avoid “direct from China” levies (Reuters)

  • Barrick was fined C$115k for its repeated, excessive discharge of toxic materials from the now-decommissioned Nickel Plate mine in British Columbia (NM)

  • Concerns that the Trump administration’s metals tariffs could divert a wave of aluminium to Europe have prompted the European Commission to consider possible curbs on imports (Reuters)

  • USA Rare Earths completed its SPAC-merger and saw its stock jump 70% on its first day of trading as investors bought into the rare earth rhetoric (NAI)

There’s less than a month to go till the RRS Gather Round 2025 investor conference, get your tickets here

Wheelin’ n Dealin’

  • Record gold prices of over US$3,000/oz drive a Ramelius-Spartan $4.2b merger (AFR)

  • Energy Fuels signed an MoU with POSCO to collaborate on new rare earths supply chains for EVs & hybrids for non-Chinese automakers (UUUU.NY)

  • Woodside Energy shares climbed off the back of signing a long term sale & purchase agreement with SOE China Resources to supply LNG to China (CB)

  • New Hope Corp pushes for sale of Bridgeport oil & gas assets (Livewire)

Rattlin’ the Tin

  • Snowline Gold has raised C$20 million via bought-deal placement of flow-through shares (SGD.V)

  • Laramide announced that Extract Advisors will convert US$3.5m of debt to equity at C$0.40/share (LAM)

  • New Murchison Gold is in a trading halt to raise capital (NMG)

Word on the Decline

  • With the Ramelius-Spartan deal out, let us turn our heads to the remaining “obvious” deals in the gold sector that could emerge in the next 12 months:

    • Ravenswood sale: rumoured Regis, Harmony, Gold Road “frontrunners”

    • Perseus x Predictive

    • Genesis x Vault

    • Greatland x Antipa

Do you have some Word on the Decline? Reply to this email or shoot a message to [email protected] directly. We will always take your privacy seriously.

In the Weeds

  • “The Reallocation” Harris Kupperman of Praetorian Capital (Kuppy’s Korner)

  • “To infinity and beyond”: Dryblower and the Trump effect on gold (MNN)

  • Reality bites critical-minerals hopes (AFR op-ed by Jennifer Hewitt)

  • DeepSeek’s AI disruption - what it means for investors (Livewire)

  • Twice broke to $2.4b buyout: A deal to keep Aussies backing mining juniors (AFR’s Chanticleer)

  • Cheap Chinese Cars Are Taking Over Roads From Brazil to South Africa (Bloomberg)

  • China Unveils Comprehensive Plan to Boost Domestic Consumption (Coal Trader)

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Today’s Top Tweet

Devil’s in the Detail

Do you remember the big down day in the market last week? Nearly everything was red except strangely Aurelia which bucked the trend and surged up 10%.

Turns out Aurelia’s major shareholder Brazil Farming topped up another 13M shares on-market between the two trading days 11-12 March causing this.

The execution sent their holding north of a 20% interest. If that sounds a bit unusual, ASX’s creep provisions allow for acquisitions of up to 3% every 6 months from a starting point above 19%.

So naturally we checked when Brazil Farming had last bought stock.

Exactly 6 months earlier.

Catch up on our latest episode

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Will Ramelius have Competition for Spartan? (1h 2min)

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