Aguia Resources appears to have cracked the code at its high-grade Santa Barbara gold project in Colombia, with six months of restructuring transforming a faltering start-up into a high-grade gold operation hitting its stride.
The company's 100 per cent-owned Santa Barbara project sits within Colombia's historic Serranía de San Lucas gold belt, renowned for its high-grade underground gold mineralisation.
The mine and gold processing plant delivered their best performance to date in June, producing 851.9 grams, or approximately 27 ounces, of gold from 100 tonnes of ore processed – a threefold increase on the previous month's output.
The improved performance came from mining the highest-grade section of the project's main gold-bearing structure, Vein No. 1, beneath Shaft 2. Thicker, more consistent mineralisation was delivered, resulting in ore grading more than 10 grams per tonne (g/t) gold to the processing plant.
The stronger performance came from tighter grade control and more selective mining of Santa Barbara's high-grade gold veins.
Those veins naturally widen and narrow along their length, making mining technically demanding. If too much surrounding waste rock is mined with the ore, gold grades can fall sharply. However, when miners stay tightly on the vein, relatively small mining volumes can generate meaningful gold production because of the exceptionally high grades.
Aguia's ability to consistently deliver ore grading more than 10g/t gold while increasing recoveries fourfold compared with the corresponding period last year suggests it has found the right formula.
The company achieved its June production target a month ahead of schedule, signalling the difficult start-up period may now be in the rear-view mirror as Santa Barbara moves towards becoming a reliable cash generator.
Aguia Resources managing director and chief executive officer Timothy Hoskings said: “We ended June ahead of schedule following six months of restructuring, optimisation and planning with gold grades and recoveries improving considerably. CAPEX and OPEX are significantly below last year and total operating costs have been reduced by more than half.”
Following site management changes, Aguia says first-half 2026 costs fell sharply compared with the previous six months. Capital expenditure was slashed by 80 per cent, operating expenditure dropped 56 per cent and overheads fell 38 per cent, reducing total operating expenses by 57 per cent.
Having stabilised the operation and sharply reduced costs, the company then turned its attention to lifting production. Plant repairs, equipment upgrades and the installation of mechanised mining equipment are now complete ahead of the next stage of mining.
The company is also pushing ahead with the project’s phase three development, expanding mining into nine production faces while work continues in the higher-grade sections of the main Vein No. 1 and a parallel gold-bearing vein.
The expanded mining areas will feed the project's gold processing plant, which now has a capacity of more than 250 tonnes per month, supporting Aguia's target to process 150 tonnes in August and 200 tonnes in September.
The planned production ramp-up is also being supported by a strong gold market, with spot gold trading around A$5,920 per ounce.
High grades mean relatively small mining volumes can still generate attractive revenues when gold prices are strong.
Santa Barbara is central to Aguia's dual-commodity strategy, combining a rapidly growing organic phosphate fertiliser business in Brazil with a high-grade Colombian gold operation, now on track to become the company's second source of operating cash.
With gold sales beginning to offset overheads and the operation targeting break-even costs this quarter, Santa Barbara is moving closer to funding its own growth.
The budding cash flow in Colombia could also fund a return to exploration drilling by the end of the year to test extensions to Santa Barbara’s high-grade gold vein system.
More than two-thirds of the project remains unexplored using modern exploration techniques, leaving plenty of blue sky beyond the current underground workings.
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By Penny Taylor
