Northern Star shares tank on FY26 guidance downgrade
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More news: Northern Star was the worst performer on the ASX 200 in morning trade after the market’s largest gold miner slashed its FY26 production guidance for the second time in two months.
Shares were down 14.5% to $22.88 at 11:30am AEDT. The stock is up 31.6% over the last 12 months.
Fellow gold miners Ora Banda Mining (-4.9%), Genesis Minerals (-4.8%) and Pantoro Gold (-4.3%) were also trading lower.
Northern Star slashes FY26 guidance again due to ‘significant’ operational challenges
The news: Gold miner Northern Star has cut its FY26 production guidance for the second time following weaker-than-expected operational performance over the last two months.
The numbers: The company said its “best estimates at the current time” is for full-year production of “above 1.5 million ounces”.
In January Northern Star downgraded its original guidance of 1.7-1.85 million ounces to 1.6-1.7 million ounces.
The context: The miner said quarter-to-date gold sales have been impacted by a combination of weaker-than-planned milling performance at its WA-based open-pit gold mine Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM), as well as reduced mining productivity across several operating areas.
Northern Star said its KCGM expansion project continues to progress well and remains on track for commissioning early FY27. The company said that until the expanded mill comes online, operations remain dependent on the existing mill, where performance is highly variable.
What they said: “Front of mind for management and the board is that efforts to achieve the FY26 forecast do not compromise the transition to the new plant and have negative implications for Q1 next year,” said Northern Star’s managing director and CEO Stuart Tonkin.
“To deal with that concern, management’s focus over the next four months will be to set the company up to achieve its full potential from the start of FY27 and not on the achievement of short-term guidance above all else.
“The production focus over this period will be on extracting ounces in the most effective way, from both a cost and mining efficiency perspective.”
The source: ASX
