Gold Fields’ flagship South Deep mine.
South Africa’s Gold Fields (NYSE, JSE:GFI) showed Thursday a drop in third-quarter earnings mostly driven by weak gold prices and stoppages at its flagship South Deep mine, which is undergoing an upgrade.
Gold’s spot price fell by roughly 10% in the three months to September as the dollar rallied to record highs over optimism in the U.S economy.
Chief executive Nick Holland told Bloomberg the sector continues to be mostly “under water” and that while Gold Fields was structured to “break even” at $1,050 per ounce, it would have to re-think the business if bullion prices dip below $1,000 and stayed there “for an extended period of time.”
The Johannesburg-based gold miner said production went up 2% to 559,000 ounces in the quarter compared with the previous three months, the company said.
It also announced it has cut down net debt in the quarter by $137 million to $1.5 billion.
Image courtesy of Gold Fields.
3 Comments
Davis
Why would Nick not be constantly “rethinking the business”? Why wait until price drops below $1000? Proactive or reactive management?
Jaziel
the mining world is crazy, shame on people who still manipulate gold prices
LAMB
If GOLDFIELDS was ‘structured’ to break-even at $1050/ounce, someone did not think this through and did not look at the ‘what-if’s’. Any company that has costs over $600/ounce should not have put that property into production. The ‘crazy days’ of gold prices rising to over 2000/oz is way behind us. Companies founded on that philosophy deserve to fail, and they will.