Gloomy quarter for gold

THE first quarter was not a good start to the year for gold miners with cash flows lower than they were last year despite an 8% rise in the gold price during that period.

AngloGold Ashanti, which will report firstquarter results tomorrow, might or might not add to the disappointing results from Gold Fields and Sibanye, which both reported drops in gold production.

Setendra Naidoo, an analyst at Capricorn Fund Managers, said investors would be keen to see if AngloGold had reduced its costs.

“The costs were higher than we wanted. We are looking for a normalisation in those costs, otherwise there is no point for the gold price to go higher if your costs are matching it — so we will be watching the cost line quite closely,” he said.

Another analyst, who did not want to be named, said the public holidays in the first quarter of the year usually contributed to a decline in production, but seasonality was marginal, given that the comparison was with the same quarter the previous year.

Sibanye said this week that its 9% drop in gold production was due to the closure of its Cooke 4 shaft, and its all-in sustaining costs rose 9% because of the decrease in gold production.

Last week, Gold Fields said its disappointing firstquarter results at South Deep were due to two fatalities and three ground collapses.

South Deep’s gold production was 43% lower than in the previous quarter, while its all-in sustaining costs were 56% higher than the last quarter’s.