Its March accounts show the project delivered a normalised free cash flow of A$20 million after production of 37,338 ounces.
The miner is targeting production for the half of between 75,000-85,000oz.
With grades, and mining and milling rates, increasing since operations started in October, managing director Darren Stralow said the company was “confidently on track” to kick that goal.
Gold poured was 36,881oz, including 13,721oz for March alone, and 32,893oz was sold.
Stralow said the ramp-up was proceeding to plan, with the processing head grade averaging 5.8 grams per tonne. A development head grade of 9.2gpt in March suggests the stoping will deliver even better material to the mill this quarter now that all five mining underground areas are active.
Stralow said blasting operations had been performing well, with minimal dilution, aided by competent hanging-wall and footwall conditions.
However, there have been some issues. Recoveries were lower than expected at 90% due to a series of mechanical issues, but they have been rectified, and Bellevue has reported improvements for April.
The mill continues to churn at an annualised 1Mtpa.
Once it declares commerciality, Bellevue will reveal its costs and guidance for FY25.
After paying down $10 million of debt and $12 million of infrastructure costs, Bellevue ended the quarter with $40 million in liquidity.
“The free cash we generated as production ramped up over the course of the March quarter highlights the huge cashflow generating capacity of this project as we move towards steady-state production and unit costs come down accordingly,” Stralow said.
It has 234,000oz hedged at an average $2780/oz — about 17% of reserves — as part of requirements for its $219 million debt.
The miner’s cash position at the end of March was $21.5 million, giving it a net debt position of $179 million.
Bellevue aims to ramp up to produce up to 200,000ozpa with targeted all-in sustaining costs of $1000-1100/oz over at least 10 years.
