Production Down in First Quarter for Gold, Copper and Iron Ore

Wednesday May 20, 2015, 9:00am PDT SNL

Financial reported that there has been a significant fall in quarter-on-quarter production for gold, copper3 and iron ore4, based on companies who have already released their data.

As quoted in the market news:

"According to the SNL Metals & Mining database, 188 companies have already announced gold, copper and iron ore output for the March quarter for which comparable data is also available for the December 2014 quarter.

However, the production results published to-date suggest that gold and iron ore production is still higher than the year-ago quarter, up almost 12% in the case of iron ore.

In the State of the Market report for the three months to end-March, published May 18, SNL notes that the 46 most significant gold producers — those with a March quarter output of over 50,000 ounces — reported a combined 11.2 million ounces, compared with an equivalent 12.5 moz in the December 2014 quarter, equivalent to a fall of over 10%.

Much of this overall decline in reported gold production was due to a significant quarter-on-quarter decline in output from AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (NYSE:AU), Goldcorp Inc. (TSX:G,NYSE:GG) and Sibanye Gold Ltd.(NYSE:SBGL) The three miners registered a combined fall in production of 476,000 ounces compared to the linked quarter.

Another four producers registered quarter-on-quarter reductions in gold production of over 100,000 ounces.

Compared to the December 2014 quarter, Barrick Gold Corp. (TSX:ABX,NYSE:ABX), whose production of 1.39 moz was the largest for the March quarter, registered a fall of 137,000 ounces. Centerra Gold Inc. (TSX:CG) saw production drop 130,553 ounces, output by Polymetal International Plc fell 113,000 ounces and Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) reported a 109,000-ounce decline.

Click here to read the full SNL Financial report.