Remediation work is underway on Panel Caves 1 and 2, with the bulk of the work relating to increasing the dynamic ground support capacity around known fault structures and rehabilitating ground support.
The mine is still subject to a prohibition notice after the April 14 earthquake, but Newcrest expects ore production from both panel caves to resume in the September quarter.
Subject to meeting that timeline, Newcrest expects 2018 financial year guidance at Cadia to be 650,000-750,000 ounces of gold.
The company last week confirmed that Cadia would not meet its FY17 guidance of 730,000-820,000oz.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Paul Hissey expects FY18 gold production to be 696,000oz, down from its previous forecast of 774,000oz.
“While the company previously announced that FY17 production is not expected to meet guidance (730,000-820,000oz) we estimate FY17 production to be 650,000oz,” he said.
While Cadia is halted, Newcrest is processing low-grade Cadia Hill stockpiles, with 10 trucks conveying around 65,000 tonnes of ore a day to the plant.
The ore contains around 0.35 grams per tonne gold and 0.1-0.12% copper and is currently being processed at a recovery rate of around 70%.
The company has identified another 20 million tonnes of stockpiled material available for processing.
Newcrest has also started work on recommissioning the Ridgeway sub-level cave with first ore due next month.
The company estimates that there is around 600,000t of ore at 0.35gpt gold and 0.3% copper.
In light of the focus on remediation, Newcrest has delayed the approval and release of the Cadia plant expansion project.
Work is underway on debottlenecking to get from 26Mtpa to 28Mtpa by FY18, with no capital required.
The mine is permitted to 32Mtpa and the company is looking at a range of options to lift throughput to that level, including a modification or a new concentrator.
A modification of the existing plant is expected to cost around $185 million and has a potential internal rate of return of 15%, while a new concentrator would cost around $230 million and have a potential IRR of around 20%.
A new 32Mtpa concentrator with the capacity to expand to 40Mtpa is estimated to cost roughly $310 million and returns an IRR of circa 20%.
Shares in Newcrest rose by 3.1% to A$20.84.
