Northern Star Resources tips a record

Western Australian gold producer Northern Star Resources has shrugged off a falling gold price to report record production and predicted a record profit this financial year.

Northern Star produced 32 per cent more gold, sold 50 per cent more and made $144.1 million in revenue, up 45 per cent from last financial year.

It anticipated an unaudited after-tax profit of about $27 million, up 30 per cent from last financial year.

Managing director Bill Beament said despite the lower gold price, Northern Star’s margins were extremely robust.

“To set production and financial records is an outstanding achievement at any time, but to do it when the company has been investing in exploration, expansion and development, as well as incurring the revenue from a lower gold price, is exceptional, Mr Beament said in a statement.

Northern Star expects its all-sustaining costs to fall to $1,000 per ounce for the current financial year, after these costs rose to $1,098 per ounce in the June quarter.

The company said its costs rose in the June quarter because of the effect lower gold prices had on the value of gold ore it had stockpiled after record mining production, which generated an additional cost of $111 per ounce.

It also incurred some one-off costs including a 140 per cent increase in production for new exploration and abnormally high processing costs following an expansion of its Paulsens processing plant.

The low price for gold delayed one of the company's gold exploration projects, Ashburton, which was identified in March as having an upgraded resource of 1.7 million ounces, but drilling programs planned for its exploration have been since been put on hold.

Northern Star maintained an all-sustaining cash cost of $1,016 per ounce for the last year, and produced 88,614 ounces of gold.

Northern Star, which payed an interim fully-franked dividend to shareholders of 1 cent in April, had a share price of $0.845 after the announcement, down 2.3 per cent.