All developed ore is expected to be mined out and processed during this period to produce up to 240,000 ounces of gold at an average cash cost of $237 an ounce.
As the Homestake operation winds up, the company expects its overall average cash costs to show continued improvement.
The total average cash cost for 2000 is now forecast to be $174/oz on total attributable production of 2.2 million oz of gold.
Despite productivity gains, the Homestake mine has had negative cash flows since the completion of million of stockpiled open pit ore in December 1999.
In the first six months of this year, underground ore grades were lower and development costs higher than planned due to the discontinuous nature of the remaining ore lodes.
The company said it does not expect the situation to improve significantly, and with the weak gold price, decided to adopt a ‘mine-out' strategy to extract the remaining gold from the mine.
