Equinox Gold is starting to look at future expansion of its Greenstone gold mine in Ontario, Canada that commenced production in April, Greg Smith told delegates at the 2024 Gold Forum Americas in Colorado Springs in Denver, USA.

Smith said the ramp-up is proceeding well. The mill is processing over 20,000tpd, and the open pit is producing more than 150,000tpd. By year end, it should be producing 180,00tpd, with the plant at 27,000tpd.

"There are opportunities to pull the pit to the east and west, which will add a couple of years to its life. We also have underground potential, which can run concurrently with the open pit and increase the average feed grade," said Smith.

Near mine exploration and expansion opportunities include 700,000oz already defined within trucking distance and 680,000oz in the Broadbank area.

With production and cash flow increasing, Smith said the company will start to focus on deleveraging the US$1.1 billion of debt on its balance sheet from the December quarter. It currently holds $168 million in cash.

"We are in a good position to start deleveraging as we reach the production and cash flow generation inflection point. Our capital expenditures are coming down drastically. With massively increasing EBITDA, the debt-to-EBITDA ratio has come down naturally.

We will use cash to reduce net debt, which reduces interest expense which frees more cash to pay down more debt. We expect a rapid deleveraging cycle starting in [the December quarter]. We think we can deleverage very quickly," he said.

Equinox is also looking at expansions at three of its mining operations, at Aurizona in Maranhão, Castle Mountain in California, USA and Los Filos in Guerrero, Mexico.  It will seek to add 20,000ozpa of additional production at Aurizona, boosting output to 140,000ozpa for 11 years, with that development to start in the first half of 2025. 

At Castle Mountain, mining was recently suspended to complete the permitting and detailed engineering of its phase two expansion. This expansion seeks to increase mining to stack over 45,000tpd for 200,000ozpa of production for 14 years. Castle Mountain sees a timeline for its permit in 2026. 

At Los Filos, it aims to build a 10,000tpd CIL circuit to complement the existing heap leach pads to add 120,000ozpa of output and bring the total to 280,000ozpa for 14 years. "We have higher grades as we get deeper into the pits, and that needs CIL to get the recovery. There has been no decision to build yet, as we are working on long-term agreements with communities," said Smith.

Equinox produced 565,000oz of gold in 2023 and is guiding 700,000oz this year.