Chrysos Corporation CEO Dirk Treasure says a new contract with a New Zealand gold mine has demonstrated the “evolution of our miner and laboratory relationships” as company chair Rob Adamson told shareholders some slow customer PhotonAssay unit rollouts had stopped Chrysos hitting its 2024 fiscal year deployment target.
Treasure said OceanaGold Corporation was expected to start using a PhotonAssay sample X-ray unit in the second half of the current fiscal year at Macraes on New Zealand’s South Island.
The unit would be operated by major traditional testing laboratory operator, SGS, which would take delivery of its fourth PhotonAssay machine.
Treasure said the Macraes unit would be the first to be leased by a miner and operated by a laboratory.
The new deployment model was a “best-fit leasing approach [that] not only demonstrates the evolution of our miner and laboratory relationships but also supports the variety of operating models being used by customers across the world”.
“This operational breadth provides Chrysos with flexibility in how it approaches the market and executes its global expansion plans,” Treasure said.
OceanaGold also has the Haile gold mine in the USA and the Didipio copper mine in the Philippines, as well as its Waihi gold operation in New Zealand.
Chrysos chair said at the company’s annual general meeting PhotonAssay units processed 4.3 million samples across Australia, Africa, North America and Europe in FY24. It had 29 units deployed at the end of June this year – nine more than a year earlier but nine shy of Chrysos’ full-year target.
“Despite Barrick Gold committing to the roll out of PhotonAssay across its global operations and having strong engagement with new and existing customers we underestimated the time it would take for some client operations to prepare adequately for unit deployment at their sites,” Adamson said.
“This was a lesson learned for our business and we now have mitigation strategies in place to minimise these operational risks going forward, specifically customer diversification and deployment agility.
“Pleasingly, since the start of FY25, we have signed up five new customer contracts.”
Chrysos is aiming to lift full-year revenues to A$60-70 million in FY25 from $45.4m in FY24. Its EBITDA goal is $9-19m versus $9m in FY24.
Australian Securities Exchange-listed Chrysos’ share price is down about 9% in the past month and more than 40% so far in 2024. Its current market capitalisation is about $555 million.
