Gold miner Petropavlovsk said it was on track to achieve its full-year production target of at least 700,000oz.

The firm said production had dropped slightly in the the third quarter due scheduled decreases at one of its mines, but it was up 11% in the last nine months compared to the year before.

Gold sales during the first nine months of the year totalled 505,600oz, an increase of 4% on the year before.

The average price it achieved during the period was $1,658/oz, an increase of 4% on the previous year.

Chairman Peter Hambro said that so far this year his firm's flagship mine, Pioneer, was performing ahead of schedule, as was its original mine, Pokrovskiy.

"The good performance of Pioneer and Pokrovskiy will compensate for some shortage in production from Malomir as, during the third quarter of 2012, Malomir was partly processing transitional ore, which impacted recovery rates," he said.

The company added that good progress was made towards the creation of a pressure oxidation processing hub at its Pokrovskiy mine.

The construction of an oxygen plant was now complete and ready for fitting out and construction of an autoclave building was on schedule, it said.

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