South Africa’s top gold miner names Nel new CEO amid copper pivot
Harmony Gold appointed Beyers Nel as chief executive officer.
Shares of Kinross Gold (TSX: K, NYSE: KGC) traded over 3.5% higher in the early hours of Thursday’s session after the Canadian miner reported strong earnings for the third quarter of 2023.
Its Q3 results release on Wednesday showed net earnings of C$109.7 million or C$0.09 per share, versus C$65.9 million or C$0.05 per share in the same quarter last year. This represents an over 66% increase in net earnings, or about 80% on a per-share basis.
At the end of the quarter, Kinross held cash and cash equivalents of C$464.9 million, with total liquidity of approximately C$2 billion.
The financials were backed by solid production across the company’s precious metals operations across the world, namely Tasiast in Mauritania, which had record gold-equivalent production of 171,140 oz., significantly exceeding the previous record. Its Paracatu mine in Brazil also delivered higher production, as did La Coipa in Chile.
The US operations also saw elevated production, with more ounces recovered from the heap leach pads at Fort Knox. During the quarter, the company also approved mining of the optimized Phase S open pit at Round Mountain, which is expected to add 750,000 oz. to its life-of-mine production profile.
Overall, Kinross’ six operating mines had total gold-equivalent production 585,449 oz., for an 11% year-over-year increase. The production cost for the quarter was C$520.6 million, about C$55 million or 12% higher over last year.
“Our production profile has been solid and generated significant cash flow. We continue to reduce the debt on our investment grade balance sheet and have completed our expansion projects at Tasiast and La Coipa,” Paul Rollinson, Kinross CEO, stated in the Q3 release.
Building on the robust results year-to-date, Rollinson said his company is well positioned to meet its annual guidance of 2.1 million oz. gold-equivalent.
By 12:10 p.m. EDT Thursday, Kinross’ stock had gone up by 5.4% with a market capitalization of C$9.4 billion.
