- AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU) -4.8% premarket after reporting a decline in headline annual earnings to $27M ($0.06/share) from $111M ($0.27/share) the previous year, hurt by restructuring costs and $46M in provisions for an expected settlement in a class-action suit related to a fatal lung disease.
- FY 2017 production rose slightly to 3.75M oz. at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,054/oz. vs. output of 3.63M oz. at an AISC of $986/oz. in the previous year.
- AU says net debt rose 4% Y/Y to $2B from $1.92B at the end of 2016, but the total was lower than the $2.15B in net debt at mid-year.
- AU also says it will reopen its idled Obuasi mine in Ghana after the government approved a plan to redevelop the asset as a more profitable, mechanized operation; AU closed the aging Obuasi mine in 2014 but now plans to start gold production by Q3 2019, and expects the initial cost of the project at $450M-$500M over the first two and a half years.
- AU said last year that Ghana’s military had cleared out illegal miners, who had numbered up to 12K at one point, from Obuasi.
- Now read: Tracking John Paulson's Paulson & Company Portfolio - Q4 2017 Update
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