Gold groups must also manage imponderables

With an ounce of gold which took more than 30 in one year, the gold companies could not disappoint investors. Especially not the numbers one and two, Canadian Barrick Gold and Newmont Mining us. Therefore, step surprising they are one and the other for the second quarter of the net profits rising more 75. Barrick has registered a positive $ 759 million, while Newmont has won $ 377 million.

To the community of analysts, the advantage goes to Barrick, which succeeds the tour de force to beat the consensus for the fifth time in a row. Newmont has entered just below predictions, but successfully as its arch-rival Canadian to satisfy the markets, because, since the publication of its results, last Wednesday, its course has tended to rise. And for good reason: thanks to this beautiful harvest, Newmont shareholders see the quarterly dividend increase of 50, and those of Barrick of 20. With, for the latter, a distribution from the semi-annual plan quarterly mode.

This rude health cannot hide the difficulties of the yellow metal producers to control their costs. If Barrick highlights the decline of the "cash" total costs per ounce in the first half of 467 to 446 dollars a year, it cannot conceal that in the second quarter they again grew by more than 1 over a year, to $ 457, and 3.5 of one quarter to another. At Newmont, the increase is most visible, of 16, to $ 492 an ounce.

If leaders are optimistic about developments in the course of gold, and the other struggling to contain their costs. Barrick Gold took the party to develop as a priority its low-cost sites. In the first quarter, he opened fire with Cortez Hills, Nevada, in the United States, which costs could lie in the range from 295 to 315 dollars an ounce. End of 2011, this will be the turn of Pueblo Viejo, in Dominican Republic, which was to the parts most gold in the world, and then, early 2013, Pascua Lama, to the Chile. The horizon of three years, it aims to extract almost 3 million oz at low prices.

Managing uncertainty

Undeveloped deposits, the world leader intends to rely on smaller competitors with which he could create joint ventures, according to Gary Halverson, the President of the Asia-Pacific of Barrick operations. To control costs, Barrick is also ready to ally with his rival Newmont to operate a vein, as is the case in Kalgoorlie, the second largest gold mine in Australia, under an agreement that runs until 2021. In contrast, the Canadian group is more ready to bid to take control of a company, as was the case of Lihir. It is left to seduce by Newcrest Mining through an offer of nearly $ 9 billion to form the fifth world producer of the precious metal.

Gold groups must also manage imponderables. In the spring, heavy rainfall have disabled Newmont production at its Indonesian mine in Batu Hijau. With lower numbers for one of its Australian mines, the group suffered a quarterly decline of about 7 of its production. Since yesterday, it must cope with a strike of the Indonesian site.

Since then, officials hope that gold prices will continue to heights. Yesterday, the ounce was sailing under the 1,180 dollars, some cables from the highest of the end of June (1.265,30 dollars). With production still growing - Newmont table on a production between 5.3 and 5.5 million ounces for 2010 and Barrick is considering the 8 million ounces-, the vein should remain profitable this year.