Endeavour Mining Corp (TSE:EDV), the West Africa-focused gold miner, said a strong performance across all its mines in the fourth quarter led to a beat in its production guidance for the full year 2018.
The company is an intermediate African gold producer and Thursday's results showed operational results from its five operating mines in the Birimian greenstone belt.
READ: Opportunities for large scale West African gold discoveries remain plentiful
In the Ivory Coast, it has the Agbaou and Ity projects, in Burkina Faso there is the Houndé mine and Karma mine, and in Mali, it operates the Tabakoto mine.
The Cayman Islands-headquartered company, told investors that full-year 2018 production from continuing operations had increased by 52% over the prior year to 612,000 ounces.
That beat the top end guidance of between 555,000 and 590,000 ounces of the yellow metal.
Meanwhile, the important metric of AISC (all in sustaining costs) from continuing operations decreased by around $30 per ounce from the previous year to around $745 per ounce, which was well below the guidance range of between $760 and $810 per ounce.
Last year benefited from a full year of production at Hounde, better production and AISC performance at the Ity and Karma mines, which more than compensated for the expected lower performance at Agbaou, said the company.
In the fourth quarter specifically, group production from continuing operations increased by 25% compared to the previous quarter to 174,000 ounces and AISC fell by 13% to circa $715 per ounce due to a strong quarter at all mines.
"The first full-year contribution from Hounde, coupled with the successful management of our portfolio, have sustainably decreased our all-in sustaining costs to below our strategic target of $800/oz," commented Sebastien de Montessus, Endeavour's president and CEO.
He said that 2019 was expected to be equally as strong, as the miner is anticipating a first gold pour at the Ity CIL plant in early Q2, where construction continues to progress ahead of schedule and on budget.
The company says it will also pursue an aggressive exploration program.
Sustained strong cashflow generation
"Once Ity CIL commences production, we expect to enter a period of sustained strong free cash flow generation with a continued focus on return on capital employed," added de Montessus.
The Ity project is expected to produce 160,000 to 200,000 ounces in 2019 at an AISC of between $525 and $590 per ounce.
Overall group production across the mines is expected to increase to 615,000-695,000 ounces in 2019 and AISC is expected to be between $760-$810 per ounce due to the benefit of the Ity CIL project coming online in early second quarter, 2019.
Shares advanced 3.92% to $20.95 in Toronto.
Contact Giles at giles@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow him on Twitter @Gile74