Barrick Quarterly Earnings Buoyed by Higher Prices

By Robb M. Stewart

Barrick Gold's earnings rose in the latest quarter thanks to a jump in gold and copper prices.

The Canadian company, one of the world's biggest producers of gold, recorded second-quarter net earnings of $370 million, or 21 cents a share, up from $305 million, or 17 cents a share, a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis that strips out items including certain one-time costs and the impact of foreign exchange movements, earnings rose to 32 cents a share, beating the 27 cents forecast of analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue for the quarter was 12% higher at $3.16 billion, just ahead of analyst expectations for $3.13 billion.

Barrick's production of the precious metal in the quarter totaled 948,000 ounces, up from 940,000 ounces in the first three months of the year but down from just over 1 million ounces in the same period last year, with increased output quarter-over-quarter at the company's Turquoise Ridge mine in Nevada, the continued ramp up at Porgera in Papua New Guinea and significant increases at Tongon in Ivory Coast, North Mara in Tanzania and Kibali in Congo.

Second-quarter production of copper, in demand for electric vehicles and wind- and solar-energy generation, rose to 43,000 metric tons from 40,000 in the prior quarter but fell from 48,000 tons a year earlier. The price Barrick realized for jumped to an average $2,344 an ounce in the latest quarter from $1,972 last year, while the realized copper price increased to $4.53 a pound from $3.70 a year earlier.

The miner has set a target of 3.9 million to 4.3 million ounces of gold and 180,000 to 210,000 tons of copper this year.

President and Chief Executive Mark Bristow said Barick is on track to achieve its 2024 guidance while also boosting production and expanding the company's asset base through key projects, including the recently permitted Goldrush mine in Nevada that is expected to ramp up to annual output of more than 400,000 ounces by 2028.

Barrick has previously laid out plans to double its copper output by the end of the decade, growing it to about 450,000 tons a year by 2031, driven by the Reko Diq mine in Pakistan and plans for a "super pit" with the expansion of the Lumwana mine in Zambia. That is forecast to lift overall attributable production by roughly 30% to 6.8 million gold-equivalent ounces by 2031.

Rival Newmont, the world's biggest gold producer, logged a 64% jump in sales to $4.4 billion for the second quarter after its attributable gold output increased 30% on a year earlier to 1.61 million ounces. Newmont has forecast output for the year of 6.93 million ounces, along with copper production of 152,000 tons.

Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 12, 2024 06:44 ET (10:44 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.