https://www.miningweekly.com

Randgold's African mining acumen is being tested on all fronts

4th April 2018

By: Bloomberg

  

Font size: - +

LONDON – Randgold Resources’s celebrated ability to operate in Africa is being tested on all fronts, and it’s taking a toll on the London-listed gold miner’s stock.

For most of the last decade, Randgold shares were the best performers among gold miners tracked by Bloomberg. Now they are among the worst in the industry, sinking 20% so far this year.

Randgold made its reputation on its ability to deliver complicated projects in remote locations, but recently it’s faced challenges in the three countries where it operates.

Strike action in Ivory Coast forced Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow to announce Tuesday that the Tongon project will likely miss its 2018 production target.

In Mali the company is in a long-running dispute with the government over a claim of as much as $200-million in back-taxes. And in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Randgold has been the most prominent opponent of a new mining code, with Bristow often acting as spokesman for the industry while miners with more at stake keep lower profiles.

The share price is “suffering under the impact of the various events,” Hunter Hillcoat, an analyst at Investec in London, said by phone. “Spearheading the response to the government in the DRC and then having the other problems doesn’t help.”

Randgold didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company isn’t the only miner being hurt by tough market conditions in the first quarter. Ten of the top 14 gold producers are down in 2018, while Congo-focused copper miners such as Ivanhoe Mines have dropped as much as 40% since the start of the year.

Randgold has over $700-million in the bank and it doubled its dividend in February. In 2017 it increased gold production for a seventh straight year, and has maintained its forecast for 2018 of 1.3-million to 1.35-million ounces of output despite the problems in Ivory Coast, according to Bristow.

“Randgold is good at working in Africa, at working with government and doing things the right way,” Hillcoat said. “It does tend to recover from these things, and hopefully this is the same case.”

Edited by Bloomberg

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION