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AIM-LISTED mining company Vast Resources has seen gold production at its Pickstone-Peerless Mine, in Zimbabwe, increase 75 percent in the six months ended September 30, to 9 452 oz.

CEO Roy Pitchford last week said that production at the mine consistently surpassed expectations, having reliably exceeded 20 000 t/m of ore. The mine was now running at a steady state.

Gold production at the mine was now close to 20 000 oz/y, at a cash cost of $700/oz.

Further, he noted that construction of a new sulphide plant at Pickstone-Peerless has started, with first sulphide production expected in the third quarter of the new year.

“This represents an important evolution to the story at Pickstone-Peerless and demonstrates our confidence in the long-term potential of this asset,” Pitchford said.

Alongside these operational expansions, the success of Pickstone-Peerless has prompted the reappraisal of development at the nearby Giant Mine, which has a Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant inferred resource of 500 000 oz of gold.

Historically, Giant was a significant producer and like Pickstone-Peerless it is believed that a world-class resource could be delineated at this mine, offering further upside to the Zimbabwean operations.

Meanwhile, Vast continues to focus on its operating 1.8-million tonnes Manaila polymetallic mine in Romania, where optimisation work has yielded important results, which has achieved an improved copper concentrate, the delivery of a second revenue stream though a zinc concentrate and a resource, which has been enlarged by about eight times – all of which have transformed the underperforming asset into a cash flow positive mining operation.

Work is now underway to generate a third revenue stream through a gold/silver concentrate. — Mining weekly