Kirkland Lake Gold (TSX: T.KGI, Stock Forum), after Wednesday’s close, announced a first-quarter net loss of $300,000, compared with a gain of $9 million in the same period a year ago.
The gold miner cited costs related to an 11-day power and production outage in May caused by a forest fire as well as lower grades and, thus, lower revenue in the quarter.
"Production plans for the remaining three quarters in the fiscal year include moving to larger skip sizes and reflect the site team's determination to make up for the loss of production in the first quarter and to maintain guidance for this fiscal year to the range of between 180,000 - 200,000 ounces. The site team is also continuing to target May 2013 for completion of the expansion project and to reach their production target of 2200 tons of ore per day. The expansion project kicked off in January 2009 and was originally targeted for completion in December 2013. While there remains a lot to be done, the finish line is in sight, to emerge as a long-life, profitable, intermediate gold mining company," said Kirkland Lake Gold Chairman Harry Dobson in a statement.