Perth, May 15, 2026, 05:03 AWST
Payments to suppliers at Northern Star Resources could be pushed back to May 21. A cyber incident at one of the company’s service providers has knocked out a chunk of the Australian gold miner’s enterprise resource planning system.
This outage is striking at the back-office just as Northern Star looks to keep investor attention locked on getting things done at its KCGM mill expansion in Kalgoorlie—a project that’s key to where it wants to go next.
Northern Star shares slipped 2.36% to finish at A$21.13 on Thursday, a steeper drop than Evolution Mining’s 1.27% decline and Newmont’s ASX-listed CDIs, down 1.22%. Gold prices lost ground as well.
In a supplier notice most recently updated May 12, the company reported that parts of its ERP system are still offline following a cyber security incident involving its service provider. ERP—enterprise resource planning software—handles tasks like procurement, ordering, invoices, and payments for companies.
Northern Star reported its backups are secure, with restoration work ongoing—system recovery, testing, and verification all in motion. The company has switched to temporary manual procedures to handle procurement and daily operations.
The company reported it found no signs of supplier data or Northern Star’s own information being breached. Its Pogo mine in the United States? No impact there, with operations running as usual.
There’s a risk restoration drags on, or that management’s evaluation of the data breach shifts. Even if production hasn’t officially stopped, hold-ups in purchase orders or supplier payments can quickly turn into headaches for a miner with sprawling operations and a big construction job underway.
Northern Star reported gold sales of 380,807 ounces for the March quarter, with an all-in sustaining cost of A$2,709 per ounce, according to a company filing. That figure, a common metric in the mining sector, factors in both production expenses and the ongoing capital required to maintain operations.
Stuart Tonkin, Managing Director, flagged in the April quarterly that the company was on track to release updated FY26 production guidance topping 1.5 million ounces. Still, he cautioned, “the outlook remains particularly dependent on mill throughput at KCGM.” NSR Limited
KCGM is still the key variable here. Northern Star maintained that mill expansion should be ready to go early in FY27, but upped its capex estimate for the KCGM mill: now A$680 million to A$700 million, up from the prior A$640 million to A$660 million range.
The setup for gold isn’t as straightforward now. Spot prices slipped 0.4% to $4,669.48 an ounce on Thursday. With oil climbing and the U.S. dollar strengthening, gold gave ground. Zaner Metals strategist Peter Grant told Reuters a stronger dollar was “putting gold under some pressure.” Reuters
Prediction markets weren’t signaling much hope for a quick rate cut, either. On Polymarket’s Fed rates dashboard, traders assigned a 98% probability to the Fed holding steady at its June meeting. Odds for a 25-basis-point cut came in at just 1%. That sort of rate outlook tends to put pressure on non-yielding assets like gold.
Northern Star calls itself a top gold producer, running mines and exploration in Western Australia and Alaska. But right now, the focus is tighter: keep suppliers on track, restore systems without stumbles, and don’t let an IT issue muddy the bigger KCGM narrative.
