Trident Royalties announces first gold pour at Santa Luz

Trident Royalties announced on Friday that Equinox Gold has successfully poured first gold at the Santa Luz Mine in Brazil.

The AIM-traded firm described Santa Luz as a brownfield gold asset with an expected mine life of 9.5 years, in addition to the potential for further underground production.

It owns a gold offtake, entitling it to purchase 35% of all refined gold produced from three operating mines - Santa Luz, Fazenda, and RDM.

The company said the offtake was subject to a cap of 658,333 ounces of refined gold, of which 465,437 ounces remained under the contract on acquisition in January.

Trident said it earns a margin equal to the difference between the sale price of the gold received under the offtake, and the lowest reference price during the quotation period.

It said the first gold was poured with material from the leach circuit at Santa Luz, with the mine expected to ramp-up to commercial production over the coming months.

Equinox said that when operating at capacity, Santa Luz was expected to produce around 100,000 ounces of gold annually.

During 2022, with a partial year of production, Santa Luz was expected to produce 70,000 to 90,000 ounces of gold.

Following the first gold pour at Santa Luz, Trident said it now held a total of 13 cash-flowing assets.

“Trident is maintaining excellent momentum in 2022,” said chief executive officer and executive director Adam Davidson.

“This year we have already announced first gold production from the Lincoln Gold Mine - over which Trident holds a royalty - and recently, the receipt of first delivery under the gold offtake with i-80 Gold.”

Davidson said the milestones reinforced the quality of the assets the firm had acquired since listing in June 2020.

“With a total of 13 producing assets generating cash flow, we have increasing flexibility in executing on our pipeline of targeted transactions.”

At 1528 BST, shares in Trident Royalties were flat at 50p.