RE:First pourLast I heard the mine was to produce 325,000 oz per yr which is 890 oz per day. Generally, in the mill, the gold is leached from the waste rock, which takes time. Gold as it is passing through the circuit can end up settling into nooks and crannies within the pipes and tanks etc, so some is lost until the mill is dismantled. And when you start a mill up you have to break in the equipment, you can't really run everything full bore or it may destroy itself - until bearings, etc, adjust themselves to the operating fit. As well they are using this time to tweak things such as the finnest of the grind of ore to optimize the recovery of gold from the rock.
We should see an announcement shortly that they have reachecd commercial production, if everything i.e. the head grade, is as was expected. And we should see from that point on at least 890 oz produced everyday.
Based on their past performance at New Afton (and the other mines) I expect they will shortly (6 months) exceed the design throughput. But we will need to wait to the 2018 first Q result report to see that.
The price of copper and gold is, if I remember correctly, exceeding the 2017 guidence document and we should see an earnings beat for 4th Q 2017 and 2017 overall.
GLTA - B2S2