Gold producer Newmont Mining Corp. said Thursday that fourth-quarter profit soared, easily beating Wall Street estimates, and revenue almost doubled on record prices for the precious metal.
Earnings jumped to $558-million, or $1.13 per share, from $4-million, or 1 cent per share, a year earlier, the Denver-based company said.
Excluding items, earnings were $1.14 a share. Analysts on average were expecting 79 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue rose 90 per cent to $2.5-billion, beating analysts' estimates of $2.06-billion.
Newmont sold 1.5 million ounces of gold, up from 1.3 million ounces a year earlier, while the cost of mining it dropped 7 per cent to $413 per ounce.
The company attributed the higher revenue to average price increases of gold to $1,102 per ounce and copper to $3.24 per pound. During the quarter, gold hit a record high above $1,200.
Newmont said its net cash from continuing operations more than quadrupled to $1.0-billion.
The company said it expected gold production to increase slightly to between 5.3 and 5.5 million ounces in 2010, primarily as a result of the ramp-up to full production of its Boddington mine in Western Australia.
But it also expects 2010 gold costs applicable to sales to increase slightly to between $450 and $480 per ounce.
"With the completion of construction of Boddington late last year," chief executive officer Richard O'Brien said, "we now turn our attention to the development of our next generation of projects, including Akyem in Ghana, Conga in Peru, Hope Bay in Canada and our portfolio of growth projects in Nevada."