07:32 AM EDT, 05/30/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Serabi Gold ( SRBIF ) (SBI.TO and AIM:SRB), a Brazil-focused gold mining and development company, was up 2.8% in UK trade late morning after earlier on Thursday reporting a post-tax profit for the three-month period of US$3.6 million versus Q1 2023's $1.5 million and a profit per share of 4.80 cents versus Q1 2023's 1.94 cents.

Among other financial highlights, it reported net cash inflow from operations for the three-month period (after mine development expenditure of $1.6 million) of $0.3 million versus Q1-2023's $2.7 million outflow after mine development expenditure of $0.4 million; and EBITDA for the three-month period of $4.7 million (Q1-2023: $2.3 million).

It also cited gold production for the first quarter of 2024 of 9,007 ounces, (Q1-2023: 8,055 ounces); Average gold price of $2,081 per ounce received on gold sales (Q1-2023: $1,892); Cash Cost of $1,461 per ounce (Q1-2023: $1,281 per ounce); and All-In Sustaining Cost of $1,859 per ounce (Q1-2023: $1,516 per ounce).

Cash held at March 31, 2024, was $11.1 million (December 31, 2023: $11.6 million including US$0.6 million relating to the exploration alliance with Vale).

"This has been a rewarding quarter of financial performance " said Clive Line, Serabi's CFO. " EBITDA of $4.7 million is a 103% improvement compared with the first quarter of 2023, but also a 37% improvement on the last quarter of 2023. The cash position remained steady, reflecting the continued investment in development and ramp up of Coringa and on-going mine development at Palito.

"Following the renewal in January 2024 of the trial mining licence at Coringa for a further 3 year period, we have been growing the workforce, started the underground drill programme targeted to grow the Serra mineral resource through drilling the down plunge extensions of the current ore body, and accelerated the mine development programme. Mine development costs of $1.6 million represent an additional $1.2 million cost compared to the first quarter of 2023, adding approximately $130 per ounce to the AISC for the quarter but this up-front investment is necessary to deliver the longer term production growth and in turn, reduce the long-term AISC. We need to incur the costs associated with the build of the Coringa crushing and ore sorting plant for the first 9 months of 2024, without seeing the benefit of materially improved grades from ore-sorting and significantly reduced trucking and process costs until Q4 2024 and throughout 2025. Mining rates continue to increase, the 56,296 tonnes of ore mined in the first quarter was a 35% increase compared with the same period of 2023, and a 14% increase compared with the last quarter of 2023 ."