Northern Star Resources shares sunk more than 18 per cent in trade on Friday, after the company again slashed its financial year production guidance.
Northern Star Resources shares sunk more than 18 per cent in trade on Friday, after the company again slashed its financial year production guidance.
The state’s largest goldminer told the market this morning that weaker performance across its operations, particularly at Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines, would impact its guidance for the financial year.
The company indicated its “best estimate” was that FY26 production would come in above 1.5 million ounces, dependent on mill throughput at KCGM which has challenged operations since December.
The announcement comes months after a guidance downgrade by Northern Star in January, where the miner reduced its projected production output from a range between 1.7 million and 1.85 million ounces of gold down to 1.6 million-1.7 million.
That was driven by a spate of equipment failures, and the ASX later probed Northern Star on its disclosure timings.
Northern Star said today that it was mindful of the “pressures building across the group” in pursuit of its guidance targets.
Managing director Stuart Tonkin said the focus for Northern Star remained on its plans for the new $1.5 billion KCGM plant, currently being built towards a commissioning target of Q1 next year.
“Front of mind for management and the board is that efforts to achieve the FY26 forecast do not compromise the transition to the new plant and have negative implications for Q1 next year,” he said.
“To deal with that concern, management’s focus over the next four months will be to set the company up to achieve its full potential from the start of FY27 and not on the achievement of short-term guidance above all else.
“The production focus over this period will be on extracting ounces in the most effective way, from both a cost and mining efficiency perspective.”
Northern Star sold 220,000 ounces of gold in January and February.
Mr Tonkin also appeared to heed calls from analysts and investors for medium-term forecasts, following a difficult few months.
“We have heard the clear feedback from our investors on the importance of a more granular understanding of the medium-term production, cost and capital outlook for our asset base,” he said.
“This work is underway and we are committed to presenting this information to the market later this year.”
Northern Star is also reviewing its operations at the Jundee mine, where it is focused on reducing costs and prioritising higher margin ounces.
Productivity has been the concern at Jundee.
Northern Star shares were hammered in early trade, down 18.2 per cent at 11.30am, to $21.91.
