Centerra Gold (TSX: CG) announced Friday that the Öksüt mine in Turkey has achieved its first gold pour on schedule and ahead of budget. The gold pour occurred in the same week that the mine celebrated a safety milestone of two million work hours lost time injury free (LTIF).
Öksüt now becomes the company’s third operating mine and its third source of gold production going forward, Centerra CEO Scott Perry stated in a media release.
The Öksüt project is a conventional truck and shovel open-pit heap leach mining operation. About 28.2 million tonnes of ore at a grade of 1.3 g/t gold containing a total of 1.2 million ounces of gold are expected to be mined and stacked over a mine life of eight years.
In addition to Öksüt, Centerra also owns the Mount Milligan mine in British Columbia, Canada, and the Kumtor mine in Kyrgyzstan, which was recently approved for restart.
Shares of Centerra Gold were up 6.3% at market open close Friday. The Canadian-based gold producer has a market capitalization of approximately C$3.11 billion.