AngloGold Ashanti Plc (AU) Q1 2006 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good afternoon and welcome to the First Quarter 2006 Results AngloGold Ashanti Conference. All participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask your questions at the end of today’s presentation. If you should need assistance during the conference, then please signal the operator by pressing * and then 0 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Charles Carter. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Dylan, and I welcome participants to this presentation by the AngloGold Ashanti executive team of our results for the first quarter ended 31st March 2006. The format of the presentation will be as follows: Bobby Godsell, our Chief Executive Office, will review AngloGold Ashanti’s financial and operating performance over this period. Kelvin Williams our marketing director, in what will be his last conference call, will briefly summarize the gold market conditions and comment on the management of our hedge book during the quarter. This will be followed by a brief presentation of two Chief Operating Officers with Neville Nicolau discussing operations in Africa and Roberto Carvalho Silva covering the international operations. After these presentations, we will take your questions. Before we begin, it is necessary for me to read the declaration regarding forward-looking statements that maybe made during this presentation. Certain statements made during this presentation including without limitation those concerning the economic outlook for the gold-mining industry, expectations regarding gold prices, production, cash costs and other operating results, growth prospects and the outlook of AngloGold Ashanti’s operations including the completion and commencement of commercial operations of certain of AngloGold Ashanti’s exploration and production projects, and its liquidity and capital resources and expenditure contain certain forward-looking statements regarding AngloGold Ashanti’s operations, economic performance, and financial condition. Although AngloGold Ashanti believes that these expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, no assurance can be given that such expectations will prove to have been incorrect. Accordingly, results could differ materially from those set out in the forward-looking statements as a result of among other factors: changes in economic condition and market conditions, success of business and operating initiatives, changes in the regulatory environment and other government actions, fluctuations in gold prices and exchange rates, and business and operational risk management. For a discussion of such factors, refer to AngloGold Ashanti’s Annual Report on Form 20F for the year ended 31 December 2005, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on 17 March 2006. AngloGold Ashanti undertakes no obligation to update publicly or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after today’s date, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. With that, let me hand it over to Bobby Godsell.

Thank you, Charles. The March quarter was marked by strong financial performance, with headline earnings for unrealized non-hedged derivatives and the loss on the convertible bond increasing by 110% to $86 million. This is primarily the result of our strong participation in the quarter’s gold price rating, with out received price coming in at just 2% under spot or $69 per ounce higher than in the fourth quarter of 2005. With respect to our operating performance, production at 1.34 million ounces was 10% below that of the previous quarter. During the first instance due to anticipated lowered rates and the fewer production shifts occurring in this quarter in South Africa, compounded by an unanticipated severe drought affecting our greater operation. Total cash cost for the company consequently increased by 11% to $308 per ounce. Our production was broadly in line with our mid quarter guidance and our cash cost performance was some 4% better than previously indicated. Production in South Africa was primarily affected in the first quarter by the slow startup after the December break. Lower volumes from TauTona and Kopanang and fewer ounces from Savuka and Tau Lekoa, of which two operations are in the process restructuring, resulted in a 9% production decline for the region. Total cash costs were 10% quarter-on-quarter in local currency terms at 61,747 Rands per kilogram. It is, however, worth noting that his increase in part reflects the commencement of commercial production at Moab Khotsong and the low volumes and high prices expected in this phase of the operations slow buildup. Excluding the impact of Moab, our South African cash costs would have been maintained and this for the ninth quarter in the row at about 60,000 Rands per kilogram. Of the other African assets, the quarter was marked by some good operating…

Bobby, thank you for the very kind words and for being handed over to. Our metal has been sufficiently in the news during this part quarter that you’d hardly need to read my comments on the gold market in our quarterly results to learn anything about the gold prices in the gold market. My observation at the beginning of the quarter that we live in the exciting times has become true in Technicolor since then. As you know, the gold prices managed t rise by over $160 an ounce since the beginning of the year to a price level over 30% up in one quarter, and the momentum of the increase is barely stalled or abated during this time. It remains the case that the behavior of the gold price is pretty well delinked from the US dollar Euro exchange rate and from the level of trading and open interest on the New York Commodities Exchange, although not entirely so, and I say this because the market still takes reference to movement or circumstances in those two markets to justify trading moves in gold. So, a slight weakening of the dollar will give rise to a material strengthening in the gold price, but the two are no way strictly or proportionately correlated as they were from 2002 to 2005. Similarly, the stock’s gold price has reached its current highest without the New York Com Exchange reaching or surpassing the net high open position of 22 million ounces, which it touched two years ago. The closest correlation we can see with other markets today is that with the base metal and commodity markets, and it’s certainly true that gold has been buoyed by continued investment flows into commodities in general. In this context or against this yardstick, the gold prices actually…

Thank you, Kelvin. The African assets produced a mixed set of results for this quarter with solid performances from all three of our Ghanaian operations and from Sadiola and Yatela in Mali. Production at Siguri in Guinea declined quarter-on-quarter and production was also down as expected across the South African assets, although Mponeng demonstrated excellent cost management holding these constant quarter-on-quarters at 51,487 Rand a kilogram in spite of a 4% lower production. Production at Morila in Mali declined by 7%, while holding steady at 22,000 ounces at Navachab in Namibia. As Bobby mentioned, commercial production began at Moab Khotsong this January and it for the first time included in the South Africa regions results. We have previously indicated that Moab will build up slowly over the next few years reaching full production and optimum cash costs in 2012, although we anticipate significant yearly production increases. As I noted last quarter, the Great Noligwa should build up price as we originally anticipated, but as mining moves east grades will gradually increase through the year and going forward as we complete the buildup. Just as Great Noligwa was mined from high-grade to low-grade over its life, so the buildup at the adjacent Moab mine starts with low grades and works toward a high grade. As costs begin to accordingly decline, this will have a significantly positive effect on the South African costs, which as a whole were pushed up this quarter as a result of Moab’s initial low volumes and high costs. The South African operations were also affected by the normal slow start to the year after the December holidays and this combined with the expected lower grades at Tau Lekoa and Savuka resulted in a 9% decline for the group two 610,000 ounces. You will note in the quarterly…

Thank you Neville. International operations generated results for the March quarter. Looking first to South America, Serra Grande reported 24,000 ounce production level and total cash costs rose 7% as a result of the continued depreciation of the Brazilian Real. AngloGold Ashanti Mineracao, however, managed to hold costs steadily quarter-on-quarter in spite of the 26% reduction decline after mining was temporarily stopped as planned, while it was shut and closed related to Cuiaba expansion project. Production at Cerro Vanguardia in Argentina was marked at 2% improvement, although cash costs were negatively affected by inflation as a consequence of higher price and increased to 8%. In North America production at the Cripple Creek and Victor were 25% as forecasted. Due to lower than originally anticipated grades, cash cost escalation, however, was held to 3% in spite of the lower production and increased ore transported to the back, as well as increased consumption online and other reagents. Production for the year, however, is still anticipated to meet a target of 323,000 ounces to 330,000 ounces. We’ll look across to Sunrise Dam in Australia. Production was just 1% below that of the previous quarter and total cash cost returned to the ordinary levels of Australia $380 per ounce or stock price adjustment considerably reduced the total cash costs in the fourth quarter of 2005. Also in Australia, as we had previously announced the AngloGold Ashanti pressure in the first half of the quarter. Construction of the project is expected to commence in the last two quarters of the year where initial production is anticipated in late 2008. With respect to our 33% interest, we are looking at the current project life of more than 15 years with gold production of approximately 330,000 ounces per year and that the assumed cash cost of US $209 per ounce for the first five years. Our 2006 share of project capital expenditure will be about $82 million and $383 million over the next three years. I will now hand it back to Charles.

Thank you, Roberto, and with that we’ll hand it back to the operator, Dylan, to poll for questions.

Thank you very Charles. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if would like to ask a question, please press * and then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question please press * and 2 to remove yourself from the queue. Our first question comes from Mr. Townsend of BJM. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon gentlemen. My first question perhaps is for Kelvin. Looking at the commentary on the physical market, Kelvin, it’s my interpretation but you seem to be making some warnings regarding physical demand, and I’m just wondering if I am interpreting that correctly if I’m also seeing the results of that in hedge book where you seem to have been quite active this quarter, and I presume that’s why you’ve managed to track the gold price quite closely especially in selling gold, but does this reflect a view that the current level in the gold price is unsustainable?

Yes, do you have any other questions? The physical market is always hit when the market has gone up. Some of the markets like the United States, if the price is rising in a seasonally good time for gold like September/October when the manufacturers are beginning their pipeline for Christmas, it will have no effect on U.S. uptake. It certainly will always impact no matter what the time of the year, whether it’s Diwali, whether it’s Chinese New Year, it will impact those countries which have low margin retail prices of gold. So there is no doubt that the Indian market retreated quite substantially in the last month or two and has remained very soft during this first quarter. That does not translate with the price. So, the fact that the price continues to rise by more than $160 over the last four months, it is confirmation of that, but the Indian demand wasn’t rising it. It’s being driven by the investment flows into metals in general, into commodity indexes, commodity funds, and as long as they continue, then there’s no reason to call the price as toppish. That then flows through to what it was which Mark did last quarter, and whether it meant that our trading around the price had implicit in it an assumption that the price was toppish, quite honestly I would think Mark would confirm to you that he didn’t do very much in the way of selling a call option, because in a rising market that’s the very position you don’t want to be in. So what is residually on our books is more in the line of short put options as protection in closing positions if the market were to retreat. But, it was an unusual quarter, and I’m not sure whether any of my colleagues would feel differently, but I don’t think any of us feels that there is anything in the market at the moment to take off the top.

It must be very busy on the production, almost 1 million ounces it looks like there, but on the physical market Barrick has also been a very active player, it certainly seems to be in this quarter and that could have tripped again back on the market and it leads me to my second quarter which is, on the hedge book as it currently stands, given the gold price where it currently stands, are you getting to the stage where you might have to bite the bullet and do something along the lines what Barrick has done in terms of a very big restructure again?

Well, let me give you a general answer that gives you a context rather than what we intend to do next. The context is that what Barrick has just done is buy 4.7 million ounces in the quarter. Certainly that might have tightened the over-the-counter market and it might explain why the gold price continued to go up even when the market was flatter than a pancake. If you go back to the last quarter of 2001 and the first two quarters of 2002, AngloGold Ashanti took back over 3 million ounces without buying back. We did it by restructuring and we put no money into the take back. We have, in the overall period of the last five years, probably reduced the hedge by close to 10 million ounces, all without doing it in an upfront buyback impacting directly on the income statement. So, in a sense, you’ve seen a pattern of behavior by AngloGold and I would think you should have seen that Mark Lynam will continue to run the hedge exposures in that way; I mean, I don’t think anybody every rules out any option, but maybe Barrick is buying back 5.5 million ounces now because it did nothing five years ago when we were taking metal back. I can’t speculate, but I’m just saying there is very little in our pattern of behavior over the last five years that I think should lead you to think that we think it’s necessary to take that kind of step.

Thank you, if I may squeeze one more in for Bobby. Bobby, out of character recently you’ve been quite a lot in the press regarding potentially quite big corporate acquisitions or mergers, particularly something with gold fields. In the current gold market again and where you are as a company, AngloGold Ashanti, do you think that there is a strong argument for that sort of emergence between gold fields and AngloGold Ashanti, because it’s a strong counsel to many of the discussions that we’ve heard in the past?

Let me just put this in the context. On a number of occasions I’ve been asked whether we could be interested in a gold field’s deal or a south deep field. I think it’s a pretty dumb person who says we’re not going to do a, b, c, and d. What I repeatedly said and say again today, we have no formal proposals about either of these companies, we have no deals to announce. If we get a deal, we’ll announce it. What we don’t tend to do is to pre-announce deals and what we certainly don’t tend to do is to rule out a range of future opportunities. We are sitting on the largest ever pipeline of organic projects with the highest ever expansion capital, and we’ve also got the most exciting prospects for green fields exploration. That’s where our growth intentions are clearly focused; plus M&A opportunities have also been opportunistic, and if something came to ask for a good deal or a wide range of things, it would be our job as management to look at them, and that’s what we’ll do.

Thank you.

Thank you very much sir. Our next question comes from Victor Flores for HSBC.

Good morning. I have two questions, first with respect to Geita and the comments you made about in Nyankanga pit, could you quantify if there are delays with the stripping, what production impact that might have for this year?

The outlook for this year is still within the range as we’ve given, and if that changes we will update our outlook. At the moment things are working and we’re not having any delays at the moment. We don’t expect any further water issues at the moment even if a drought was to occur since we’ve upgraded the pipeline from Lake Victoria, and at the moment we are going down in Push back 4 and 5, so the guidance that we gave, which is in our documentation…

Actually Neville I can pick that up. The guidance we gave Victor was in the region of about 550,000 ounces; when we issued the specific operating we revised the Geita guidance to about 550’ish roughly for the year.

The second question goes to Bobby, I know the gold there is to get development from where it’s been and try to move that production level up from say 100,000 ounces a quarter to maybe as much as 110,000 or 120,000. It looks like the operation is still underneath those improved objectives, there, I was wondering if you can just comment on the problems there.

Well we have Robby Lazare in the room, the Executive Officer, for the region, but our outlook for the year for Obuasi, we’ve given it about 415,000 ounces and the first quarter’s results are in line with achieving that target, and now I’ll hand it over to Robby to talk about the development.

Development is also on target at this stage. We have now got five managed developed reserves. We are planning to get to 10 months by the end of the year, and the plan in terms of the development, you can see it but if you looked at the gross you would see that it’s on a continual upward trend, so we are quite confident that we will get the mining flexibility that we need by the end of the year.

Great, thank you very much.

Thank you very much sir. Our next question comes from Muneer Ismail of Deutsche Securities. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon gentlemen. Just two questions; you may have answered one of the operational questions, but I’ll ask it anyway. With regards to restructuring at Tau Lekoa, Neville, you mentioned that the restructuring is complete now, what do we have to look forward to, is it 400,000 ounce mine or will grades pick up, will production get better from this point?

Again, Robby Lazare is right here to answer that question.

Restructuring is on track. We’ve got down to our production levels now, but we’ve planned after the first quarter. The cost is about in line. There’s a little bit of tweaking still to do in terms of the cost. We’ve gone into the April month now and we’ve sort of finished our gold production and it was on target, and the cost was about on target as well. A major improvement in terms of cash flows has occurred for the first time in a long time with Tau Lekoa this last month, but positive cash flow.

On CAPEX then, just looking at Obuasi and Great Noligwa, I see that in Great Noligwa there’s a drop in CAPEX from $19 million to $9 million, in Obuasi from $30 million to $16 million, where did that come from, is this is a trend or are we going to see a resurgence in CAPEX going forward in the next quarter?

Now that was only the first quarter, you know there’s always a slow start to the year and we manage capital accordingly. We still by the end of the year will be on the capital that was forecast for the year.

And I thing the Obuasi capital actually goes up by $20 million, and we will spend it.

And then one last one, sorry, I’m dragging on, but just on Geita, Geita produced 84000 ounces this quarter, you’re targeting 500,000 plus for the year, are you going to get this out in the next three quarters, it seems like a bit of a stretch given that timing, you’re tonnage is 1.5 million tonnes per quarter, I can’t see you going much beyond that.

But, remember, the plan is to get Push back 4 and 5 down. If you look at the electronic presentation which we’ve put out, Push back 4 and 5 lie right on top of the high-grade ore body and it is our plan to get into that high-grade ore body by the fourth quarter. So, it’s not over the next three quarters, it’s actually towards the end of the year. So, it’s low grades and constant volumes in the beginning for the next two quarters and then in the fourth quarter high grades and similar volumes.

Okay, but seriously high grades?

Yeah, seriously high grades.

Thank you very much sir. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, that if you would like to ask a question please press * and 1 on your touchtone phone. Our next question comes from Heather Douglas of BMO Nesbitt Burns. Please go ahead…I’m sorry Heather Douglas has actually withdrawn her question. We have no further questions sir, if you would like to make a closing comment.

We’d just like to thank participants for joining us on this call and our full results presentation is on our website. Thank you.