AngloGold Ashanti Reports $71 Mln Of Free Cash Flow In Q2

(RTTNews) - AngloGold Ashanti (AU) Monday said it generated $71 million of free cash flow in the second quarter. Production and costs beat guidance on the back of another strong performance from its international mines and a recovery from its South African operations.

Production was 1.007 Moz at a total cash cost of $718/oz in the three months to June 30, 2015, compared with 1.098Moz at a total cash cost of $833/oz in the previous year. The result compared with guidance of 960,000oz to 1Moz at $770/oz to $820/oz.

Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan, CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, said, "Cost management will continue to be a key driver for us. Whilst we've greatly improved the balance sheet following the sale of CC&V, this will not diminish our focus on improving free cash flow and returns through active portfolio management, capital discipline, and unrelenting focus on our operations."

AngloGold Ashanti said it has responded to lower gold prices by cutting overhead expenditure by more than two-thirds since the end of 2012, whilst lowering all-in sustaining costs by about a quarter over the same period.

The improved performance reflected in second-quarter adjusted headline earnings was $26 million, or 6 US cents per share, compared with a loss of $4 million, or 1 US cents per share, in the second quarter of 2014. Adjusted headline profit of $35m, or 9 US cents per share, was recorded the previous quarter.

Gold production for the third quarter of 2015 is estimated to be between 900,000 oz to 950,000 oz and total cash costs of $770/oz to $820/oz.

The annual guidance for production has been revised to exclude CC&V with effect from August 1 at 3.8Moz to 4.1Moz. The guidance for total cash costs and all-in sustaining costs remain at $770/oz to $820/oz and $1,000/oz to $1,050/oz, respectively.

Capital expenditure guidance for the year revised downward (excluding CC&V) by $100 million to $0.9 billion to $1.0 billion.