Quarterly gold production up 77 per cent at Centamin

Gold production rose 77 per cent in the three months ended March 31st 2013 on the prior year period at FTSE 250-listed Egypt-focused gold miner Centamin, financial results have shown.

In its quarterly results, the company reported that gold production was up 2.0% quarter-on-quarter to 87,016 ounces and 77% more than the corresponding period in the previous year.

Quarterly earnings were up 6.0% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2012 and 66% on the prior year period before exceptional charges.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the quarter was $81.7m, up 6.0% on the fourth quarter of 2012 and 71% on the prior year period before exceptional charges.

The cash cost of production of $556 per ounce was below the 2013 full year guidance of $700 per ounce. The company said that this was due to reduced open pit mining costs as a result of the build up in broken material following the temporary suspension of operations in December 2012.

The group maintained its guidance at 320,000 ounces at a cash cost of $700 per ounce inclusive of fuel prepayments and reported that it remains debt free and unhedged with cash, bullion on hand, gold sale receivables and available for sale financial assets of $88.7m as at March 31st 2013.

Josef El-Raghy, Chairman of Centamin, said: "Following on from record 2012 financial results, the team at Sukari have delivered a second successive quarter of record gold production, with further improvements across all areas of the operation. This marks a solid start to the year and output remains on target to achieve the 2013 guidance of 320,000 ounces."

He added: "With the plant running at consistently high levels of productivity, the processing function is well placed to deliver the next step change in throughput from the Stage 4 expansion, which remains on course to complete commissioning by the end of the year."

Centamin's share price was up 0.99% to 36.69p at 09:05 on Wednesday.

MF