TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian gold miner Iamgold has swung to a second-quarter net loss of $28.4-million, mainly dragged down by its booking of impairment charges related to its investments.

The company on Monday posted a net loss for the three months ended June 30 of $0.08 a share, compared with net earnings of $52.9-million, or $0.14 a share, in the same quarter of 2012.

Iamgold said it took a $16.1-million charge related to a drop in the market value of its investments, and an additional $23.2-million charge related to its investments in Galane Gold and INV Metals.

Revenues for the period totalled $301.1-million, down $63.4-million or 17% year-on-year, mainly because of a 14% decline in the realised gold prices to $1 373/oz and a 5% drop in the volume of gold sold to 201 000 oz, which was partly offset by higher niobium sales of 1.3 t.

The lower sales volume was related to lower production, as expected, at Essakane, in Burkina Faso and Rosebel, in Suriname, owing to lower throughput and lower grades, and timing differences between production and sales.

Adjusted net earnings for the period were $30.2-million, or $0.08 a share, down 60% year-on-year when compared with $75.3-million, or $0.20 a share. Analysts had on average expected adjusted earnings of $0.09 a share.

Total gold production was 224 000 oz in the quarter, up 10%, or 20 000 oz from the same quarter last year.

Total cash costs for all gold mines in the period were $787/oz, unchanged from the first quarter ended March 31 and up 7% year-on-year. All-in sustaining costs for all gold operations were $1 196/oz sold, up 10% year-on-year, mainly owing to lower grades and harder rock, along with the increase in sustaining capital expenditures required to support the higher hard-rock capacity levels at Rosebel and Essakane.

The company said it was making good progress to reach its cost-reduction target of $100-million by year-end, having achieved 55% of the target.

“We are reviewing our mine plans in light of lower gold prices. Our most important priorities continue to be cost reduction, preservation of liquidity and disciplined capital allocation,” president and CEO Steve Letwin said.

The company, which operates mines in West Africa, South America and Canada, had lowered its cash costs guidance for all gold mines to $790/oz to $840/oz, down from between $850/oz and $925/oz, and all-in sustaining costs for all gold mines to between $1 150/oz and $1 250/oz, down from $1 200/oz and $1 300/oz.

Iamgold expected 2013 attributable gold output to total between 857 000 oz and 950 000 oz.