All attendees are in a listen only mode. If you'd like to ask a question, please enter it in the Q and A panel within Zoom. I will now hand over to Perseus Mining Chief Executive and Managing Director, Jeff Quartermaine. Over to you, Jeff.
Thanks, Rios. Thanks, Nathan, and welcome to this webinar to discuss Perseus' March 2021 quarterly report that was released to the market earlier today. Now at the risk of sounding like a breaking record each quarter, Perseus has recorded yet another strong quarterly performance, Increasing our production by 29% and providing the curious indicator yet that the company is well and truly on its way to achieving its Targeted production rate is 500,000 ounces of gold per year, but a cash margin of US400 Dollars per ounce or more. We completed the commissioning of our 3rd mine, Yaiori, and by the end of March, Mine was cash positive and we were able to declare commercial production from 31 March. This was the last major milestone in the development of this very important project.
In fact, each during the quarter, each of our 3 mines, including Edikan in Ghana as well as Sissingue and Yayoi in Cote d'Ivoire have all performed very much in line with our expectations. As a group, we produced 88,458 ounces of gold and sold 87,215 ounces, about 31% more than in Prior quarter. Pleasingly, our oil inside costs were less than US1000 dollars per ounce and with the help of a recently bought in gold price, we're able to generate a fair material amount of cash putting us into a strong position to fund the future. Our organic growth strategy is starting to show signs of As reported earlier this month, some of our work at Bago and at Gayore is looking quite interesting. And in time to come, we expect to publish further positive news flow about real organic growth from those sites.
We made excellent progress in terms of managing our sustainability, a materiality analysis and a gap analysis to See exactly where we need to apply further effort to align ourselves to global standards was recently completed by our newly appointed Head of Sustainability. And all of this will be documented in our very comprehensive 2020 sustainability report that will be published very shortly And that is something to look out for. So anyway, in summary, Persis is in a very good place and this is the result of a lot of hard work and support Very dedicated and professional team of employees and their families over a number of years and I would sincerely thank them all for their efforts. For those of you who haven't yet had the opportunity to read our March quarterly, let me briefly talk in a bit more depth about a couple of key elements of our performance Before opening up to any questions that you may have. So firstly, as I said, our major achievement this quarter was indeed the success Commissioning of the Yaori mine and associated infrastructure, culminating in commercial production at the end of the quarter.
Now, as you recall last quarter, we pulled our first gold at Yaoure in December and then shortly after experienced some equipment failure at the site. This required us to implement a few contingency plans to commission the rest of the plant until we could replace the filed equipment. Now after managing to procure and install a replacement transformer for our SAG mill late in February, things move very, very rapidly. And we were able to satisfy all of our completion tests and demonstrate that the mine was indeed cash positive by the end of March and so the declaration of commercial production. We produced 22,095 ounces of gold at Yaohori during the quarter, including nearly 10,000 ounces in the month Going forward into the June quarter, we expect to start introducing higher grade fresh material from the CMA pit, Ensuring that we comfortably achieve our production and cost guidance at Kaohori for the June half year.
And just reminding you that that guidance is 48,000 to 52,000 ounces at an all in site cost of US1100 dollars to US1300 dollars per ounce and we believe that we can quite easily or quite readily achieve that. Now we plan to release an updated life of mine plan for Aori towards the end of the June quarter. This plan will be based on a mineral resource that includes a modest increase resources compared to the original DFS, but it's unlikely to include additional resources resulting from recent drilling or other studies that we've undertaken. When these additional resources have been estimated, they'll materially increase the life of the mine, but this further update will be produced later in the year After we published this life of mine plan that's due out at the end of the quarter. The June 2021 life of mine That will however reflect actual costs and this I expect will show an improvement in project economics relative to the DFS.
So, Yaoure is up and running. And may I take the opportunity to sincerely thank and congratulate everybody who Contributed to what really has been quite a remarkable achievement given the challenges seen as a result of the COVID pandemic last year. There have been many outstanding contributors and I'm not only referring to our excellent development team and our contractors who built the mine. A lot of work went into the discovery, engineering, financing, licensing and administration of the property. And of course, Last but not least, I'd also like to acknowledge the tremendous support and cooperation that we've received from our host communities and their traditional leaders, As well as representatives of the government of Cote d'Ivoire, including former ministers, Bru and Kuasi.
As a result of the endeavors of all of these people, we're now able to look forward to generating material benefits from Yaiori for all of our shareholders for many years to come. Now not to be outdone, the Edikan and Sissingue mines have also performed very strongly during the quarter. Combined, the 2 mines produced 66,364 ounces of gold at a production cost of US852 dollars an ounce and a weighted all in So, at cost of $9.99 per ounce. So, production was up a little on the last quarter, which is neither here nor there, but the 7% and 4% decrease respectively in production and all insight costs were much more material in terms of generating incremental cash flow. This was an extremely good performance when you consider that Sissimbi lost nearly 10% of available production time during the quarter Due to disruptions caused by the actions of a small group of youth from one of the nearby villages and in Edikan, our mining contractors' Equipment availability was subpar for periods of the quarter due to COVID related maintenance challenges.
I should say that both these issues have largely been resolved, But to achieve what we did in the face of those challenges was a very good effort indeed. One point regarding Trinidadican that I would like to Particularly draw your attention to is the dollar recovery rates that we achieved this quarter. Now regular readers of our quarterly reports would know that for several quarters Last year, we struggled to optimize speed blend at Edikan and to get the best balance of head grade throughput rates recovery And on occasions, we recorded disappointing recovery rates. I'm very pleased to say that with the end of the Bikutsi fresh ore and the opening up of new ore sources In the Fetish and AG pits, we've seen a steady climb in recovery rates. And in fact, in March, they averaged Around 88.5%, which is a lot higher than the 74% that we saw in December.
We do expect these elevated Recovery rates to be the norm from here and that's certainly the case so far in this month. We still need to balance head grade and throughput rates as some of the ores are Harder than others, but that's a much more manageable than the metallurgical challenges we faced in the past. So that's a significant Now with respect to Sissingue, notwithstanding the lost production time, everything else There has gone exceptionally well this quarter and we've consistently exceeded our internal targets on mostly if not all of the key parameters. So Run time throughput rates, grade recovery, etcetera. The only thing that remotely resembles a cloud on the horizon at this mine, ironically, it has nothing to do with Sissingue's operating performance per se.
This quarter, we've once again been frustrated by our inability to have the Mining lease needed for the mining of the Phimbe Basso deposit approved by the Ivorian Cabinet of Ministers. Since I spoke last year, there's been a series of matters that have taken precedence in cabinet over approving mining leases, including a presidential election, Reconciliation of opposition forces post election preparation of the legislative election that was held in March, the death of the 2nd Prime Minister in 8 months and most recently a cabinet reshuffle. Now I do believe that We'll be meeting with the new minister this week in Abidjan and the Tumby ASA license will be at the top of the agenda for discussion. The issue here is that if the license is delayed further, it will impact our mining schedule in the back end of this year and we'll need to process lower grade All stockpiles until we get full access to the higher grade ore FMBR. So now this will have no influence whatsoever on the remainder of this financial year We're on our ability to achieve market guidance for this year, but it could become an issue later in the year if not resolved.
And so Quite clearly, it's a matter of real importance for us. Now looking to the future, our production and cost Guidance to the market for the 6 12 month periods ending 30 June is well, the 6 months, it's 175,000 to 190,000 ounces at 950,000 to 11.50 U. S. And for the full financial year, it's about 313,000 to 3,270,000 at 9.70 to 10.70. Now I think we've still got 2.5 months of the reporting period to go And Tony can go wrong in this time, but given our performance to date, including both the March quarter and the June quarter to date, We're very confident of not only achieving both production and cost guidance, but hopefully doing very well relative to those targets.
Now in terms of our financial performance during the quarter, our average cash margin on each ounce of gold produced from Edikan and Sissingue was 629 dollars per ounce down a little from $6.51 in the prior quarter due to a decrease in the weighted average sales price from $16.87 to $16.28 Now notwithstanding this, our cash margin was more than 50% greater than our strategic target of $400 an ounce, which generated us which enabled us to generate something like US42 million dollars of notional cash flow from Edikan and Sisingia alone. Now as we hadn't declared commercial production at Gayora till the end of the quarter In accordance with international financial reporting standards, we have capitalized all revenues and costs from Yaiori up to that date. So we don't count cash flow from Yaiori in our titles, but from 1 April onwards, Yaiori's costs and cash flows will be published together with the other mines. As I said earlier, Yiori was actually strongly cash positive in March. So we do expect to see our notional cash flow from operations take a big lift in Quarters to come if things go as we expected all of the mines.
And finally, throughout the March quarter, Perseus has managed to maintain its balance sheet Strengths through those strong cash flows and also prudent financial management. As I said, the national cash flow from the operations was 42,000,000 This quarter allowed us to pay outstanding bills from the development of Yaiori, fund exploration at all 3 operating sites, Pay income tax in Ghana, pay corporate overheads and still hold cash and bullion at the end of March of 136,000,000 U. S. Dollars up from $118,000,000 in the previous period. That gave us net cash of $6,000,000 after you take into account our Outstanding debt of $130,000,000 Now when you consider that since late 2016, we've invested close enough to US400 $1,000,000 in bringing firstly Sissingue and then Yaori online and we've still managed to end up in a cash positive position without major equity raise We have done quite well and I guess position Perseus to really reap the benefits of this hard work as we go forward.
Now speaking of the future, Our plans for future growth of the business is a topic that I'm regularly asked about these days with Yaoure online and running our focus is firmly moved into implementing various maintaining our targeted production level of 500,000 ounces per annum consistently into the future by either Organic call for inorganic means. In the short term, Persist's main focus is simply to replace mining depletion through organic grade, Well, setting up for longer term organic growth. Now to achieve this, the emphasis over the next 6 to 12 months will be placed on the incremental addition of mineral resource ore reserves from near mine deposits that are currently the subject of exploration and or feasibility studies. And as I said earlier, a little over a week ago, we published Drilling results from a couple of the exploration programs that we've been conducting recently. One of these was at Givissu on the Yaoure tenements And the other was on the Bagway tenements located close to Sissingue.
And if you haven't seen these results, I would urge you to take A close look at the release because as people will recall, the results were very encouraging And will I expect be the first of many such results that will come from our work in coming months and indeed years. We have some really excellent targets Pursue at all 3 of our mines. And with the completion of our recent mine development program, this is the first time at Perseus In a very long time that we've actually had the means to properly fund exploration. Now off the back of the Bagua results that We published the other day relating to drilling at Antoinette, Verneig and Juliet. We are preparing a definitive feasibility study for the development of these deposits.
This will be completed by the end of June 2021 quarter. This is a little bit later than what I had previously flagged, but this was the result of Slow turnaround of results from overworked assay labs in Cote d'Ivoire. Now we do expect that there'll be Significant addition to mineral resources and ore reserves and that we estimate that the result of this will be Quite an extension to the forecast life of the Sissingue operation. So that's very pleasing indeed given the efficiency of that particular Operation. Now speaking of feasibility work, it would be remiss of me not to mention our evaluation of developing an underground mine on the Now following careful consideration of the economics of the proposed development and notwithstanding the fact that Further technical work has increased confidence in a number of key technical parameters, including estimated tons and grade And the size of the mineable resource actually by about 63,000 ounces.
We have concluded that the overall project risk return ratio as it currently stands Doesn't meet our investment criteria. So as a result of that, we've decided to defer the planned start of the implementation of the Esaiza South Underground Development for the time being. Now, I should also say that we have not given up on this project. Further technical reviews will be undertaken to potential for additions to the ore reserve at depth and also additional optimization of designs and mining methods will be Undertaken. While we're doing this, we will engage with the government in Ghana, various Discussions there and also complete licensing.
And one thing we will also do is we will meet all outstanding commitments to our host community in relation to the project. So that Should circumstances change sufficiently, we will be able to switch this project on without any drama. In the meantime, beyond the June quarter, we do have several large targets that have been identified for potential conversion to mineral resources and possibly reserves close to infrastructure at the mines. As I said, the preferred targets for organic growth at Teh O'i include the CMA underground and other targets established from the initial interpretation of the 3 d seismic survey that was completed on the site last year. That looks exceptionally interesting there, I have to say.
At Edikan, subject to gaining access for drilling, A drill program is planned at the Bremen deposit on the Agikusu permit where significant mineralization has been identified on the surface In artisanal mine workings. Now as far as that access is concerned, we have made very good progress in recent times and we're hopeful that Final agreement will be reached allowing access fairly shortly. At Sissingue, there is certainly further potential We have mineral resources and all reserves through the Bagway area. In fact, we have a drill rig heading back there. I think it's this week or early next week to recommence Drilling in that area.
I should also say that potential inorganic growth business opportunities involving either mergers or Acquisitions are also regularly assessed by our in house technical and commercial teams. Given the challenges of implementing value accretive M and A and applying Strict financial discipline in assessing opportunities. We're not planning our hopes on this activity for delivering growth in the immediate future, Preferring to focus on near mine and early exploration growth strategies. But I can say we are actively looking. I think the strategic acquisitions of Amara that yield the Aori project and more recently Exor Resources that Yield at Bagway has shown that we have the capacity to successfully identify value and transact when the right M and A situation presents.
The point of this is that having now got Yaori up and running, we are actively involved in shaping the future of this company and Doing it in a way that we believe will create will be significantly value accretive for our shareholders. And news flow over the next few quarters will reveal that progress. And I do expect that There will be a steady stream of positive news to share with you as we push forward. So in conclusion, as I said at the start of the call, the March quarter has been yet another very The quarter for Perseus as you promised it would be. The June 2021 quarter has started very well at Edikan, Sissingue, and Ya'iore is building up, Hitting all the key parameters and trending certainly trending in the right direction.
Financially, we're getting stronger by the day due to the solid production results, Containment of costs and strong gold prices. Exploration wise, we've got a clear plan and we have a budget and we're getting on with the task of organically growing our business and creating value for shareholders. And as I said, in terms of inorganic growth or M and A, We are in the game and while we're making no promises in relation to this, we are putting ourselves in a position to transact and capture Shareholder value if the stars happen to align. And finally, we are now in a position where we can seriously discuss Internally, the returning capital to shareholders by way of a dividend or share buyback. And it should only be a matter of time before the quality of Perseus' performance recent performances and earnings capacity is recognized by the market and our patient shareholders will be fully rewarded for the support of this company.
So thanks very much for listening and I'm now happy to take any questions that you may have.
Thank you, Jeff. Got the first one from Mike Milliken. It says, Hi, Jeff. We did see another strong quarter of production. If you get the grant to the mining license for Provenso in the June quarter, will that allow time for mining to start in the September quarter?
It goes on further in regards to gold hedging, do you plan to maintain the 2080 profile, I. E. 80% unhedged?
Look, I mean, if we have a wet season upon us now, we started building the roads at Bimbiase last Early this year, late last year. So we've done the first leg of it. We now have to wait for a couple of months to let the wet season do its thing And then we'll finish that road. So we are very hopeful of being able to mine without interruption. But the Bavarian government is difficult to predict in terms of timing.
They do have their own important priorities, but I can assure people that we'll be working extremely hard to bring that forward as early as we can and to avoid any disruption To production schedules, if that's at all possible.
Yes. And the second one in regards to the gold hedging.
Sorry, I'll get you there. No, look, we don't anticipate any material change to what we're doing at the present I mean, as people know, our hedge policy does permit us to hedge up to 30%, so 30%, 70%. We are sitting around the 20% at the moment and See no real reason to change that. But if circumstances were to dictate that it was a sensible thing to do, might put a little bit more hedging on. But look, we actively manage that position and I think that we have been able to demonstrate over a long period of time now It is a way of managing downside risk, a significant downside risk for us and make sure that we can Continue to generate cash flows so that we can deal with the benefits that we promised to all of our stakeholders.
Thank you. The next question is from Adam Baker. He's asked, can you walk us What part of Esuajah South underground weren't attractive? Was it due to the higher expected costs or lower grades? And will you publish a new Airtime life of mine plan?
Yes. Look, as I said, the work that we've done recently We improved our confidence around the technical parameters. So the resource actually, when we first did the study, the real concern Was the risk around the resource, but we've convinced ourselves through extra drilling that in fact that risk is not of the high order that we Previously estimated. No, I think the situation really comes down to commercial matters at the moment. The cost of mining has gone up and that certainly impacts on what we're doing, there has been an element of fiscal creep.
And I guess when we look at the situation and we say, well, We understand what the maximum exposure is and the risks around it and we ask ourselves, is this the best Use of capital in our company in terms of creating value. And when I say the best, I mean the best return relative to the risk. And the question the answer to that At the present time is that no, we have other ways of deploying capital that will create more value for shareholders and that's what It's driven that decision. Now as to the second part of the question, will we be producing an updated life of mine plan? Yes, we will.
And that will be published in due course. But it does have been in fact we've already looked at that very carefully obviously as part of this evaluation. And the point is that it doesn't really impact our production profile that much. And as As I said earlier, we do have alternatives to that will likely be brought online as a replacement in short order in any event. So In the overall scheme of things, we don't believe that this decision that we've taken now is going to be a big negative as far as the company is concerned.
And as I also said, we put ourselves we're putting ourselves into a position where maybe we can Change that decision in the future if we can find better ways of doing what we're seeking to do.
Thanks, Jeff. As there are no further questions at this Tom, I'll now hand back to you for closing remarks.
Okay. Well, thanks, Nathan. Well, look, as I've already said, I mean, we are well and truly On the path to achieving the objectives that we set ourselves some time ago, we are in exceptionally good Okay, both from an operational point of view, from a financial point of view and from a growth point of view. And I think that this company is now moving into A very different place to what it has been in the past and it certainly warrants the close attention of all investors I would think at this particular time and We're looking forward to delivering further very positive results in coming periods. Thank you very much for your attendance.