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To: Cactus Jack who wrote (51507)	5/15/2002 4:18:32 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

Newmont Disputes Pollution Charges At Annual Meeting By: Tom Locke, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES DENVER -(Dow Jones)- Environmentalists punctuated Newmont Mining Corp.'s (NEM) annual meeting Wednesday with outside protests and claims of pollution and unresponsiveness to local communities near its gold mines. But in a question-and-answer period during the meeting, Chief Executive Wayne Murdy countered the claims, charging that the environmentalists' information was incorrect. Diana Ruiz, mining campaign coordinator for Project Underground in Berkeley, Calif. , said that 2.8 million tons of toxic waste had been dumped by Newmont in a bay near its processing plant for the Minahasa Mine in Indonesia and that the dumpings had hurt the fishing industry and caused skin rashes for people in the area. Murdy said that the dumped tailings - the crushed rock left over after the gold is removed from the ore - that are dumped are nontoxic. Independent studies show they have had no measurable impact on the fishing in the bay, he said. And skin rashes of local inhabitants are a result of poor sanitation, not the tailings disposal, he added. Murdy also disputed Ruiz's claims that the company hasn't been working with local communities in planning the closure of the Minahasa Mine. That closure will take several years, and the company has set aside substantial amounts of money for it, he said. Murdy also stressed that Newmont plans to be in Indonesia , where it runs the large copper and gold Batu Hijau Mine, for decades, and it wants to make the Minahasa Mine a model for responsible mine closure. Another environmental group, Boulder , Colo. -based Global Response, passed out literature urging a letter-writing campaign. The campaign is designed to encourage community participation in decision-making on Newmont's mines and to forestall expansion of Newmont's part-owned Yanacocha Mine in Peru to Mount Quilish, a source of drinking water. Murdy stressed that the company has worked closely with communities near its mines in different parts of the world. CEO Stresses Integration Savings on Target Murdy also said Newmont is "on target" to reach $70 million to $80 million in synergies in the first full year of operations following its February merger with Canada 's Franco-Nevada Mining Corp. and Australia 's Normandy Mining Ltd. Most of the integration of the companies will be completed by the end of October, Murdy said. The first, "stabilization" phase of the process was completed in march with 200 tasks finished. The second, "transformation" phase is in progress and involves blending the cultures of the three companies. Newmont's addition to reserves didn't replace production in 2001, and Murdy attributed that partly to spending on long-term development at the Yanacocha Mine in Peru . Newmont President Pierre Lassonde pointed to potential for various projects, including one in Indonesia and two in Ghana , and said he is optimistic that new reserves will offset production in 2002. biz.yahoo.com

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (51507)	5/15/2002 4:21:04 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

Newmont reports quarterly loss, but gold sales up By Judith Crosson DENVER, May 15 (Reuters) - Newmont Mining Corp., the world's biggest gold miner, on Wednesday reported a quarterly loss, due in part to increased operating costs, but said it still expects strong profit growth for the full year. "The first quarter marks a transition and will not be indicative of our full-year performance," Chief Operating Officer Wayne Murdy said in a statement. The company expects full-year earnings of 40 cents to 50 cents a share, before unusual items and assuming current gold prices, up from 7 cents a share in 2001. Chief Financial Officer Bruce Hansen said most of the 2002 earnings would come in the second half. "We have said that for the full year we're targeting in the range of 40 to 50 cents per share, and most of that will be in the second half," he told Reuters in a telephone interview. Newmont said its average realized price for gold was $291 an ounce in the first quarter, up from $264 a year earlier. Its total production cost rose to $262 an ounce from $220. Newmont sold 1.46 ounces of gold in the first quarter, up from 1.42 million a year earlier. Newmont (NYSE:NEM - News) shares were off 48 cents at $27.57 in midday trade on the New York Stock Exchange, not far below their 52-week high of $30.50. Newmont's philosophy is not to hedge its production, so the recent rise in gold prices has boosted its share price. Hedging is when gold producers sell their as-yet unmined nuggets in forward markets at fixed prices in order to guarantee income. The price of gold was above $300 an ounce in April, up from about $270 at the end of 2001, as investors scrambled out of the dollar and equity markets and sought a safe haven for their cash amid heightened tension in the Middle East. The precious metal was fixed at $307.50 an ounce in the London morning session on Wednesday. Denver-based Newmont reported a net loss of $10.9 million, or 4 cents per share, for the first quarter, including a one-time gain from a hedge it inherited in an acquisition. In the year-earlier first quarter Newmont lost $39.1 million, or 20 cents per share, after one-time gains and charges. Hansen said Newmont will start reaping the benefits of its February acquisitions of Franco-Nevada Mining Corp. Ltd. of Canada and Normandy Mining Ltd. of Australia in the second quarter. The company expects savings of $70 million to $80 million a year from the acquisitions. The CFO said Newmont expects to sell about $400 million of non-core assets, up from a previous goal of $250 million to $300 million, reflecting in part a "better seller's market." "We have the largest land position, 94,000 square miles, the size of Great Britain," he said. "There are tremendous opportunities, given that land bank. We have a lot of adjacent areas with industry partners, and we're looking at rationalizing and consolidating various districts." So far, Newmont has sold about $210 million of assets, he said. The World Gold Council's efforts to boost jewelry sales with its "Glow with Gold" ad campaign in fashion magazines were "planting some seeds" for sales growth, but the weak U.S. economy is cutting into disposable income, Hansen said. biz.yahoo.com

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (51507)	5/16/2002 2:39:22 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

How to Live to Be 100 business2.com

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (51507)	5/16/2002 10:57:43 AM
From: Jim Willie CB	Respond to of 65232

NEM sales, production, earnings were just fine some hurdles underway with integrating acquisitions always bumpy some acqns had forward hedging that needed to be closed this sector is NOT about creating earnings just yet it is about lining up properties to produce gold esp after the gold price rises more these guys are sitting on massive gold reserves THAT is what drives the price, with prospects of GOLD price rise nothing too impressive, but not the real story / jim

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (51507)	5/16/2002 2:12:58 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Ex-Andersen Partner Kept Files Critical Of Enron Accounting By: Roy R. Reynolds, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Thursday May 16, 2:01 pm Eastern Time HOUSTON -(Dow Jones)- Notes from a conference call in which Arthur Andersen LLP (X.AAD, X.AND) partners called Enron Corp.'s (ENRNQ) trading operations " intelligent gambling" and a memo in which auditors disagreed with Enron's treatment of special-purpose entities were among the documents kept by former Andersen partner and engagement team leader David Duncan, even after he instructed other employees to destroy documents. Also included in the files was a copy of the "smoking gun" memo authored by Andersen partner James Hecker and sent to many Andersen partners after Enron executive Sherron Watkins expressed concerns to him last year about her company's dealings with then-Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow's LJM entity. Hecker called his memo - previously introduced as a government exhibit - a " smoking gun you can't extinguish" on the cover sheet. "You preserved, for all time, documents with criticism of Arthur Andersen accounting in Enron matters," asked lead defense attorney Rusty Hardin. "Well, I know I kept this one," Duncan answered. Defense cross examination of Duncan, the government's key witness in proving that Andersen obstructed justice by shredding documents ahead of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, entered its second day Thursday, with testimony mainly centered on incidents where Andersen accountants clashed with Enron over the energy company's Raptor entities. Enron wanted to account for the four Raptor units as one whole, while Andersen pushed to keep them separate - a move that would result in impairment charges. "I wanted further deliberation on it," Duncan said. "I did believe it was a judgmental matter for the audit." Members of Andersen's oversight arm, the Professional Services Group, disagreed with aggregation, leading Duncan to write a memo early last year that detailed the discussions from both ends. And despite the destruction of thousands of documents under Andersen's document retention policy - which called for the retention of only final work product from an audit - Duncan kept the memo in his files. "This memo with this discussion was available for anyone to view," Hardin asked Duncan. "Yes, it was," Duncan said. Duncan pled guilty in April to obstruction of justice, and testified earlier this week that he ordered members of the Enron engagement team to follow the document policy, which led to the mass destruction of documents. Also included in Duncan's files were notes on a February, 2001 conference call on which partners debated keeping Enron as a client and talked about Enron partnerships with Fastow-controlled LJM. "We did not think that was a good idea, but felt it was an area for corporate government," Duncan said. The firm felt the need for Duncan to check that Enron's board was receiving competitive bids on business done with LJM. During the same conference call, the notes show that one partner characterized Enron's mark-to-market trading earnings as "intelligent gambling," another factor that led Andersen to consider the energy company as a high-risk client. In his opening statement to the jury in the trial, Hardin asked how Andersen could have tried to block an SEC investigation by shredding documents when so many "embarrassing documents" remained in their files.