Beacon Minerals (ASX:BCN) lowered its gold production guidance for the March quarter and now anticipates 4,600 to 5,400 ounces, according to a Tuesday Australian bourse filing.

The company said that lower production in February was caused by the final three benches at the MacPhersons pit underperforming in grade relative to expectations, a scheduled mill shutdown, periods of unplanned downtime during the month, and lower ore grades processed during the period resulting from the treatment of MacPhersons stockpiles and lower grade ore mined from the final MacPhersons cutback.

In the same filing, the company said its resource development drill program at the Iguana deposit, part of the Lady Ida project in Western Australia, intercepted multiple high-grade intersections. It hit intercepts of 9 meters at 25.9 grams per tonne (g/t) grade of gold from 132 meters, as well as 3 meters at 47.9 g/t grade of gold from 13 meters.

Beacon Minerals' shares fell 5% in recent trading on Tuesday.