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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alex who wrote (32378)	4/22/1999 8:51:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116764

Canada's Barrick produces golden quarterly results 10:18 a.m. Apr 22, 1999 Eastern TORONTO, April 22 (Reuters) - Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX.TO) (ABX.N), North America's second-largest gold producer, on Thursday posted the best quarterly results in its history despite languid bullion prices. Net earnings in the first quarter ended March 31 rose 16 percent to $87 million, or $0.23 a share, from $75 million, or $0.20 a share. Revenues reached $392 million, against $305 million in the first quarter of 1998 as quarterly output topped one million ounces of gold, up 31.4 percent from 769,282 ounces in the first three months of last year. Bullion values touched an 18-year low last summer at $270 an ounce from a recent peak of $415 an ounce in 1996. Cash gold was up $0.10 at $283.35 an ounce on the London Metal Exchange on Thursday. Cash costs of production fell by 25 percent to $116 an ounce benefiting the Toronto-based miner's bottom line. Barrick's cash costs were forecast to average $125 an ounce in 1999 compared to $160 last year and output should rise 12.5 percent to 3.6 million ounces from 3.2 million ounces. Operating cash flow climbed to $210 million or $0.56 a share, up 56 percent from $135 million or $0.36 a share. ''Through our premium gold sales programme, we sell gold for three times the cash cost of production,'' Barrick President and Chief Executive Randall Oliphant said in a statement. ''The acquisition of Sutton Resources' high quality assets further enhances Barrick's new era of growth,'' he said. Sutton mines for cobalt, copper, gold and nickel and operates in underexplored mineral belts located in emerging markets. Oliphant said Barrick expects to double the reserve base of Sutton's Bulyanhulu mine in Tanzania, Africa, which should be in production late next year - allaying fears expressed in European trade publications earlier this month that project might not be completed. As of the end of the first quarter Barrick had no net debt, a cash balance of $554 million and shareholder equity of $4 billion. Barrick opened C$0.35 lower at C$27.15 in early moderate volume on the Toronto Stock Exchange and was down 1/8 to $18-1/4 on the New York Stock Exchange. ((Gilbert Le Gras, Toronto Reuters Newsroom, 416 941 8100, fax 416 869 3436, email: toronto.newsroom+reuters.com)) Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.