Perth, March 18, 2026, 06:10 AWST. 1
Northern Star Resources shares steadied on Tuesday, but only just. They finished up 0.39% at A$20.66 after a two-session slide of about 23% sparked by the miner’s latest fiscal 2026 production warning, and the stock was still among the ASX’s heaviest-traded names by value. 2
That matters because a modest rise did little to unwind the damage from one of Northern Star’s worst selloffs in years. Investors are now trying to work out whether problems at Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines, or KCGM, and at Jundee are temporary bottlenecks ahead of a new mill, or something harder to fix. 3
Northern Star said January-February gold sales were 220,000 ounces and now expects fiscal 2026 output to come in above 1.50 million ounces, below its earlier 1.6 million-to-1.7 million ounce view. Managing director Stuart Tonkin said management would focus over the next four months on setting up fiscal 2027, “not on the achievement of short-term guidance above all else,” while keeping the new KCGM plant on track for start-up early in fiscal 2027. The company said about 800 contractors are on the plant, another 400 are on enabling works, and roughly 100,000 ounces of higher-grade ore were on stockpile at the end of February for processing next year; it also promised medium-term production, cost and capital forecasts later this year and said the next scheduled update is the March-quarter report on April 22. 4
Jon Mills, an equity analyst at Morningstar, cut his earnings forecasts for fiscal 2026 through 2028 and said the larger replacement mill should fix most of the KCGM production issues, though he now assumes a slower ramp-up once it starts. Even after the selloff, Mills said the shares still looked materially overvalued against Morningstar’s A$15 fair value estimate. 5
Broker targets were reset sharply. Market Index, summarising research published on Tuesday, said JPMorgan cut Northern Star to neutral from overweight and slashed its target price to A$24 from A$39, RBC lowered its target to A$28 from A$31.50, and Jarden kept an underweight call with an A$16.60 target. 3
Peer trading pointed the same way. Evolution Mining rose 3.66% on Tuesday while Northern Star gained just 0.39%, a gap that suggests investors are treating the hit as company-specific rather than a broad sector move. 2
Northern Star’s long-term appeal has been tied not only to higher bullion prices but to its growth pipeline. Reuters reported in December 2024 that the company agreed to buy De Grey Mining in an all-share deal valuing the smaller miner at A$5 billion, and Morningstar estimates De Grey’s Hemi project could add about 500,000 ounces a year around 2030. 6
But the bounce may prove flimsy if KCGM throughput stays erratic or if Jundee’s operational review fails to lift output from higher-margin areas. That would leave Northern Star exposed to another reset on production or costs when it reports March-quarter numbers on April 22. 4
