wesdome gold mines ltds shares were sharply lower wednesday after the canadian focused gold miner logged a drop in production in the final quarter of last year and laid out guidance for 2023 in morning trading the shares were 16 lower at c651 they have fallen 40 over the last 12 months wesdome after the market closed tuesday said that despite an overall increase in ore milled gold output in the fourth quarter fell to 35116 troy ounces from 41559 ounces in the same period a year earlier that included production of 9614 ounces at its recently commissioned kiena mine in quebec down sharply from 16929 ounces the year before and production of 25502 ounces at the eagle river mine in ontario up from 24267 a year earlier for the year production was 110850 ounces down from 123843 in 2021 in 2023 wesdome said it expects overall production of between 110000 to 130000 ounces including 80000 to 90000 ounces at eagle river and 30000 to 40000 at kiena president and chief executive duncan middlemiss said last year was a challenging one for the company with production misses at both assets at eagle he said underperformance was primarily due to variability in the mines falcon zone mineralization that affected the ability to accurately forecast nearterm production while at kiena the company was limited to lowergrade areas of the mine by supply chain delays that put wesdome about six months behind schedule on its original commercial production date and nine to 12 months behind on ramp development andrew mikitchook an analyst at bmo capital markets said that while fourthquarter production modestly beat his estimate for 33000 ounces the production guidance for 2023 was below expectations after updating for the guidance his target on the shares falls by c1 to c15 a share