Driefontein and Kloof, by contrast, both had very difficult quarters after a slow start-up caused by the spill-over effects of safety stoppages late in the June quarter. As development and flexibility improves over the next 12 to 24 months we expect these mines to improve their performance. We believe that both Driefontein and Kloof can and should do better, and the focus remains on returning these operations to a production level of approximately 209koz of gold per quarter for Driefontein and 177koz for Kloof.
St Ives had a disappointing quarter, its production being 9 per cent below the previous quarter. This was mainly as a result of the rehabilitation work in a high grade area of the Belleisle underground mine taking longer than expected due to safety concerns. We look forward to a stronger performance from St Ives over the next quarterly period. Agnew had a satisfactory quarter with production levels similar to the previous quarter.
With the Tarkwa CIL plant now having stabilised at its nameplate capacity of more than a million tons milled per month, the West Africa Region is well positioned. Tarkwa is now capable of producing between 190koz and 200koz per quarter and we hope to see a strong movement towards this range during the December quarter. This is, however, subject to resolution of the current industrial relations situation affecting the gold sector in Ghana, which continues to be tense following protracted wage negotiations which, at the time of writing, are not close to resolution.
The Group has achieved a solid cost performance during the first quarter. Despite the Rand exchange rate of R7.82 against the US Dollar being about two per cent stronger than the rate of R8.00 used in our guidance for the quarter, our cash costs came in on guidance at US$586/oz and our NCE slightly better than guidance at US$826/oz.
We look forward to further improvements in our performance during the December quarter and our aim is to increase production to approximately 925,000 ounces in this next quarter."
The full results are available on the Gold Fields website: http://www.goldfields.co.za
About Gold Fields
Gold Fields is one of the world's largest unhedged producers of gold with attributable production of 3.6 million ounces* per annum from nine operating mines in South Africa, Ghana, Australia and Peru. Gold Fields also has an extensive growth pipeline with both greenfields and near mine exploration projects at various stages of development. Gold Fields has total attributable Mineral Reserves of 81 million ounces and Mineral Resources of 271 million ounces. Gold Fields is listed on JSE Limited (primary listing), the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX), the Euronext in Brussels (NYX) and the Swiss Exchange (SWX).
For more information please visit the Gold Fields website at http://www.goldfields.co.za.
*Based on the annualised run rate for the fourth quarter of F2009
