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Operations Report
14
For the 12 months to June 2013, the availability 
of the RH90 fleet has been at 80%, with the 
RH40 fleet at 78%. The target availabilities for 
these fleets are 88% and 85% respectively. 
Availability of the haul trucks was 85% versus a 
target of 90% for the 777D fleet. A commit-
ment has been undertaken by the contractor to 
address the under performance.
Approximately 2.5 days of production were lost 
due to rainfall during the year. Total rainfall for 
the year was 1.3 metres which is in line with the 
long term average.
Mining operations continued on a 24 hour per 
day basis throughout the year, with the excep-
tion of the development of Q prospect. 
Due to the proximity of Q prospect to the 
community and the local roads, development 
began in March 2013 on a 5 day week basis  
on day shift only. In April this was extended  
to 7 days per week on day shift only. 
Upon completion of mining of the C North 
Cutback, it was backfilled to allow the reinstate-
ment of Highway 1301 as well as to improve 
access for waste rock haulage to TSF#2. The 
reinstatement of the section of Highway 1301 
that passes through the C North area is still 
pending final approval from the Department of 
Highways in Bangkok and Phitchit.
The engineered fill for the second lift of TSF#2 
was constructed from November 2012 to May 
2013. This will provide an additional 10.4 million 
tonnes of storage capacity. Waste rock from  
A Pit is being continuously sent to TSF#2 at a 
rate of approximately 7,000 BCM per day for the 
construction of the downstream embankment. 
During the year, a number of cost saving initia-
tives were identified and implemented. The 
initiatives included trials using reduced explosive 
powder factors and changing from blasting 
6 metre benches to 9 metre benches, with 
subsequent savings in bulk explosive and drilling 
costs. Work was also undertaken to validate 
increasing the size of the grade control drilling 
pattern, without decreasing the accuracy of 
grade estimation. This has resulted in a signifi-
cant saving in grade control drilling costs.
As part of the budget/life of mine planning cycle, 
opportunities for improving project value were 
identified through the fine tuning of pit designs 
and sequencing of push backs within each of the 
pits. This involved running optimisations on 
individual ore bodies and targeting areas of high 
value within the pit shells. 
To test the robustness of the life of mine plan, 
various scenarios were investigated at varying 
gold prices. The result of this work highlighted 
that A Pit was still very robust. 
The new plant, Chatree North, continued to 
operate in commissioning and optimisation 
mode from the start of July 2012 until its 
completion at the middle of August. The Plant 
was shut down for a total of 63 days while 
undertaking a drawn-out process for the 
granting of a Metallurgical License. The Plant 
resumed operation in October and quickly 
exceeded design processing capacity with 
throughput of 3.47 million tonnes per annum 
(Mtpa) or 28% above the design rate of 
2.7 Mtpa. The Plant performed extremely well 
Physicals 2012/13 2011/12 % Change 
Waste mined bcm 5,649,614  6,258,662 -44%
Ore mined bcm 2,708,634  1,9 47,275  39%
Waste:ore ratio  2.09*  3.2* -35%
Ore mined tonnes 7,051,4 8 8  4,986,173 41%
Ore treated tonnes 5,699,014  5,115,720 11%
Head grade (gold) Au g/t  0.9  0.9 0%
Head grade (silver) Ag g/t  11.9  11.6 2.6%
Gold recovery %  79.9  84.4 -5.3%
Gold poured ounces 133,681  121,372 10%
Silver poured ounces 1,000,569  918,314 9.3%
* After waste capitalised to TSF
Cost Category
2012/13
$US/oz Gold 
Produced
2011/12
$US/oz Gold 
Produced % Change 
Cash operating cost  620  460 35%
By product credit**  (180)  (210) -14%
Depreciation / amortisation  185  143 29%
Total production cost  952  761 25%
** Net of silver royalties