JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Toronto and Johannesburg-listed Great Basin Gold on Thursday reported a fourfold widening of its losses in the March quarter.

President and CEO Ferdi Dippenaar said that the company had incurred a loss of four Canadian cents a share compared to one Canadian cent a share in the December 2008 quarter.

Dippenaar said that the highlights of the quarter were the development of two access points into gold-bearing reef at Great Basin Gold’s Burnstone project in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province, and the achievement of more trial-mining progress at Hollister in Nevada, US.

Hollister’s 23 375 t stockpile – which contained an estimated 23 525 oz of gold equivalent – had shipped to gold-mining company Newmont’s Midas mill in April and May.

Subsequently, Great Basin Gold had entered into an improved, fixed-charge toll-milling agreement with Yukon Nevada Gold, which would allow for the treatment of Hollister ore at the reopened Jerritt Canyon mill at US$88/t. Recovery factors of gold and silver had been set at 88%. Five thousand tons of low-grade material, which had been stockpiled at Jerritt Canyon since 2008, had subsequently been milled.

“The agreement is a significant improvement on the current milling arrangements,” Dippenaar said.

Predevelopment expenses mainly for Hollister, but also for Burnstone, had decreased from C$16-million to C$5,6-million quarter on quarter.

To date, C$62-million had been expensed through the income statement for Hollister and this would continue until Nevada’s Bureau of Land Management approved the amended plan of operations. An environmental impact study for Hollister had been initiated during the quarter.

Predevelopment costs of C$5,8-million were capitalised for Burnstone, compared with C$7,0-million in the December quarter.

More than 2 000 m of decline development had been completed at Burnstone, the access decline continuing beyond the reef elevation.

The crosscut to Block B3 had reached the Kimberley Reef elevation, and development to establish working places had been initiated.

Sixty-six metres of development remained to access the Block C and begin mining, and underground development was also underway to prepare for build-up of production.

Sinking of the vertical shaft at Burnstone had continued and, the shaft had reaching a depth of 233 m below surface. The final depth of the shaft would be 501 m. Construction of the waste rock deposit site was completed two weeks ahead of plan and the refurbishment of the mills continued on schedule.

The contract for the civil excavations for the gold plant was granted in this month.