(Reuters) – Newmont Corp on Thursday fell short of Wall Street estimates for third-quarter profit, as the world’s largest gold miner struggled with weak production.
Denver, Colorado-based Newmont’s quarterly attributable gold production fell 13% to 1.29 million ounces from 1.49 million ounces a year earlier, largely due to lower production at the Penasquito mine in Mexico, as well as Akyem and Ahafo mines in Ghana.
The Penasquito mine was shuttered in June when the company suspended operations after a strike by the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic.
On October 13, 2023, Newmont reached a resolution with the Union and expects to reach full operating capacity at the mine by the end of the fourth quarter.
On an adjusted basis, the company posted a net income of 36 cents per share for the July-September quarter, compared with the average analyst estimate of 43 cents.
The company incurred $78 million of operating costs and $53 million of depreciation costs while operations were suspended.
All-in-sustaining cost (AISC) for gold, an industry metric that reflects total expenses associated with production, fell to $1,426 per ounce from $1,472 in the second quarter on higher sustained capital spend.
Rival Barrick Gold earlier this month said it expected AISC per ounce of gold to fall about 6% to 8% from the previous quarter, reporting preliminary production of 1.04 million ounces of gold in the third quarter.
(Reporting by Seher Dareen in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid and Shinjini Ganguli)
