Norseman Gold (LON:NGL) has restarted underground mining operations at the OK Decline, which forms part of the Norseman mine in western Australia.
Mining was temporarily stopped at the decline following a fatality on 5 August 2010.
The company said that investigations into the incident are continuing.
Operations at the other two declines, the Bullen and Harlequin, have been unaffected and they continued to operate as normal throughout the period.
In the company's most recent result, Q4 interims, which were released just one week before the incident, Norseman reported production of 14,469 oz (ounces) – most of which came from the two unaffected declines. In the three-months ended 30th June 2010, just 561oz of gold were produced from the OK Decline, meanwhile Bullen and Harlequin produced 4,170oz and 9,641oz respectively.
The OK Decline is the newest of the three declines, and the company has been ramping up production since OK began producing early this year. On 30 July, Norseman said it expected the OK Decline to steadily increase its production profile with more ore development undertaken and stoping.
In early trading on London’s AIM market Norseman shares climbed almost 5%, to trade at 42.75p.
The restart is a further boost to Norseman and its investors, after the company revealed a third consecutive increase in its annual resource statement. Yesterday, the company upgraded both the reserves and resources at its Western Australia mine.
Reserves increased by 5 per cent to 420,000 ounces of gold from 1.7 million tonnes at 7.7 grams of gold per tonne. The resource base, meanwhile, creeps up 3 per cent to 3.8 million ounces of the precious metal from 21 million tonnes at 5.3 grams per tonne.
Of the total Reserves, 330,000 ounces of gold are located within the Bullen, Harlequin and OK declines.