B2Gold achieves commercial production at Goose mine

B2Gold’s (TSX: BTO, NYSE-A: BTG) Goose mine, part of the Back River Gold District in Nunavut, has officially reached commercial production three months after making its first pour. Shares surged.Commenting on the milestone, CEO Clive Johnson said: “The Goose mine will be a cornerstone of B2Gold’s production base and demonstrates the strength of our construction and operating teams worldwide.”According to the Vancouver-based gold miner, it declared commercial production at Goose following an internal commercial production measure of 30 consecutive days of mill throughput averaging 65% or greater, based on a design capacity of 4,000 tonnes per day (t/d).From Sept. 3 through Oct. 2, 2025, the mill achieved an average throughput of 2,652 t/d, which represents 66% of design capacity, with most of the feed coming from the Echo open pit, B2Gold said.However, it also noted that the mill achieved an average throughput of 3,249 t/d or 81.2% of design capacity from Sept. 19 onwards. At this rate, the company said it believes the Goose mill can operate near its design capacity of 4,000 t/d through the fourth quarter of 2025, during which the mill feed will predominantly come from the Umwelt deposit.Additionally, gold recoveries have been in line with expectations through the 30-day commercial production period, and are expected to average higher than 90% through Q4 and beyond, B2Gold added.The announcement, coupled with another record gold price, sent B2Gold’s Toronto-listed shares 5.7% higher to C$7.49 apiece, the highest in five years. Its market capitalization is C$9.8 billion ($7 billion).Production forecastsWith commercial production at Goose achieved, B2Gold is forecasting 80,000 to 110,000 oz. of gold production from its newest mine this year, representing about 8-10% of the company’s 2025 production guidance (970,000 to 1,075,000 oz.) across all operations.In the following two years, B2Gold forecasts gold production at Goose to reach 250,000 oz. and 330,000 oz. respectively. During the first six full years of operations (2026 to 2031 inclusive), average annual gold production is expected to reach 300,000 oz. based on existing reserves.While the current mine plan targets a total production of 2.3 million oz. over nine years, it is based on just a fraction of the Back River district’s 6-million-oz. resource base, leaving room for further expansion. The company is also investigating expanding the mill capacity to 6,000 t/d to increase its production.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com