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The world’s largest gold miner Newmont (TSE: NGT) on Thursday beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit on stronger bullion prices and a boost to production from its newly acquired Goldcorp assets.
Gold prices marked their best annual increase since 2010 last year, as concerns over global economic health, low interest rates and geopolitical tensions triggered investor interest in safer assets.
The nearly 100-year-old U.S. miner’s average realized gold price jumped 20% to $1,478 per ounce in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, while attributable gold production rose 27% to 1.83 million ounces.
Newmont cemented its position as the world’s largest gold producer following its $10 billion takeover of rival Golcorp last year, with the new assets helping it almost double adjusted profit in the quarter to $410 million.
“In 2019, we generated $1.4 billion in free cash flow from the gold industry’s best portfolio of assets”
Tom Palmer, president and chief executive Officer.
“In 2019, we generated $1.4 billion in free cash flow from the gold industry’s best portfolio of assets and we continued to deliver on our promises by completing four projects on four continents within budget,” said Tom Palmer, president and chief executive Officer.
“Newmont is well positioned with the industry’s largest reserve base strategically located in top-tier jurisdictions that enables us to sustain production and generate robust cash flow across price cycles.”
Excluding one-time items, the miner earned 50 cents per share, beating the average analyst estimate of 48 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Reported all-in sustaining costs to produce an ounce of gold, an industry metric that reflects total costs associated with production, rose 12% to $946.
The company’s net income attributable to shareholders was $565 million in the quarter, compared with $2 million a year earlier.
(By Nishara Karuvalli Pathikkal; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
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