Page 48 Page 48 MLEN SPRING 2020 By Kevin V incent Since taking over the Red Lake Gold Mine from Newmont Goldcorp Corporation in late 2019 the out look for Evolution Mining at its new Canadian gold mine is getting better and better The company expects annual production to top 200000 ounces a year by the end of 2020 as they are making a signifcant in vestment over the next three years The company owns fve mines in New South W ales Queensland and W estern Australia Executive Chairman Jake Klein says Australiabased Evolution had been actively looking for Canadian assets since 2017 W e believe the low geopolitical risk and high geo logical prospectivity strong mining culture and skills make it an ideal location Klein told investors at the time The company made an upfront payment to Newmont Gold corp of USD375 million At the end of Q1 Klein reported back to shareholders that the COV ID19 pandemic did not impact the company s fnancial performance The company began infll drilling at the Red Lake complex and the company said the results were particularly pleasing at Couche nour where one hole intersected Evolution Mining reinvigorating former NewmontGoldcorp Red Lake assets 66m of 1697gt while another de livered 1 14gpt over 33m Red Lake produced and sold 37895 and 42141 ounces respectively in the March quarter Red Lake s June 2020 quarter production is expect ed to be around 25000 ounces at an AISC of A2100 A2300 per ounce as the operation focuses on implementing the interim and trans formation plans Sustaining and major capital are expected to be A50A70 million and A150A170 million respec tively Exploration investment is ex pected to be A30A40 million Since the Red Lake acquisition was announced on 26 November 2019 all of Evolution s executive team in addition to many other senior lead ers and technical experts have spent a considerable amount of time on site to commence planning the turnaround strategy and to en sure a smooth integration into the Evolution portfolio The company has a high level of confdence in the ability to substan tially grow mineral inventory confr mation of the belief that fxed and variable costs can be signifcantly reduced very positive engagement with the workforce who acknowl edge change is required to secure the long term future of the opera tion and validation of the scale of the turnaround opportunity An in terim plan is now being executed at Red Lake as part of the delivery of a longerterm operational transfor mation with key objectives of Im proving and maintaining the safety culture reducing AISC to below US1000 per ounce and increas ing production to above 200000 ounces per annum In order to deliver a high return on their investment Evolution has made several improvements at Red Lake including Underground development rates increased to 755 metres in March Development is expected to average 850 900 metres per month in the June 2020 quarter as the operation ramps up towards sustained development rates of over 1000 metres per month from the September 2020 quarter onwards Development in noncore areas has been stopped Decommissioning of redundant underground mobile equipment Commenced procurement process for underground mobile equipment to increase capacity and efcien cies Delivery of the equipment is expected by the end of FY21 Commencement of decommission