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Drought affects gold production at Geita Mine
2006-05-06 09:09:10
By Guardian Reporter
Gold production at Geita Gold Mine has declined, South Africa’s largest gold miner AngloGold Ashanti, operators of the mine reported yesterday.
A report posted on the firm’s website said despite this decline as well as from the firm’s other mining operations elsewhere, AngloGold Ashanti reported an overall massive 112 per cent jump in headline earnings per share.
Adjusted headline earnings per share increased to 200 cents in the March quarter from 94 cents in the December 2005 quarter, the group said.
Gold output for the quarter declined by ten percent to 1.340-million troy ounces from 1.494-million troy ounces in the December quarter.
AngloGold Ashanti recently advised that it expected to produce 1.347-million troy ounces of gold in the March quarter.
The report said ’significantly lower production from the Geita operations in Tanzania, as a result of a countrywide drought and subsequent heavy rains, negatively affected production.’
During the quarter, only two of AngloGold Ashanti’s 20 gold mines showed an increase in output from the December quarter.
Cerro Vanguardia increased output by two per cent and Yatela’s bullion production rose by six per cent.
Of the major decliners, Tautona’s output fell 14 per cent, Kopanang declined 12 by percent, AngloGold Ashanti Mineracao saw a 26 per cent fall in output, Geita’s output fell 30 per cent, Cripple Creek and Victor declined 25 per cent, Bibiani’s output dropped 40 per cent and Tau Lekoa fell by 25 per cent.
The group reported a basic loss per share of 405 cents for the March quarter from 552 cent loss in the December quarter.
Only two mines reported a gross loss adjusted for the effect of unrealised non-hedge derivatives — Tau Lekoa reported a loss of $5-million and Moab Khotsong of $7-million.
Moab Khotsong started commercial production in January 2006 and produced 9000 troy ounces of gold in the first quarter at total cash costs of $848/ troy ounces.
Production at Moab Khotsong was expected to increase by about 80 percent in 2007, the company said.
The Obuasi mine produced 99 000 oz of gold in the March quarter and adjusted gross profit of $1 million.
At the end of March, the total net delta tonnage of AngloGold Ashanti’s hedge was 11.23-million ounces from 10.84-million ounces at the end of December 2005.
On Thursday, the marked-to-market value of the hedge book was a negative R22.125-billion, based on a gold price of $664.70/oz and exchange rates of 6.09 rand to the US dollar and $0.766 to the Australian dollar.
Headline earnings for the March quarter before unrealised non-hedge derivatives and fair value loss on the convertible bond increased to R530-million from R250-million in the December quarter.
AngloGold Ashanti attributed this increase primarily to the gold price rally.
The gold price received for the quarter was $545/oz, two per cent under the spot price for the March quarter or $69/oz higher than in the December quarter of 2005.
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