Newcrest Mining Ltd. (NCM), Australia’s largest gold producer, fell the most in a week in Sydney trading after flagging lower output this quarter and bullion dropped.
Newcrest, which said last month it will book a full-year writedown of as much as A$6 billion ($5.5 billion), declined 3.4 percent to A$12.26 at 1:06 p.m. in Sydney, the most since July 18. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index slid 0.3 percent.
First-quarter output is expected to fall from the prior period as lower-grade stockpiles are processed at its Lihir mine in Papua New Guinea, Chief Executive Officer Greg Robinson said today on a call with analysts. Gold declined for a second day, extending its biggest drop in almost three weeks, as U.S. housing data backed the case for less stimulus amid speculation the price rally this month may damp demand.
“The production fall is not going to be very well taken by the market,” Lucinda Chan, head of Asian business at Macquarie Equities Ltd. in Sydney, said by phone. The decline in Newcrest shares also reflected the retreat in the gold price, she said.
Production is “expected to progressively increase over the course of the financial year,” the company said today in a statement, reiterating a forecast of full-year gold production in fiscal 2014 of 2 million ounces to 2.3 million ounces.
“They also haven’t provided any guidance beyond 2014,” Macquarie’s Chan said. “All they say is that the market is going to be volatile and they hope they can keep their work in progress going.”
Production increased to 642,032 ounces in the three months ended June 30, from 587,310 a year earlier, Newcrest said in today’s statement. The median of four analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg was 597,500 ounces.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Stringer in Melbourne at dstringer3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jason Rogers at jrogers73@bloomberg.net
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