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AngloGold Ashanti Annual Review 2010
CEO’s review
CEO’s review
commodity producing nations strengthened against the dollar,
and higher labour costs and metal prices spurred input costs
of everything from power to drill steels, reagents and grinding
media. Despite a decade of higher prices, the supply response
from the gold industry remained muted. It has perhaps never
been clearer that, with the average, all-inclusive cost of
production for the industry at more than $1,000/oz, the
fundamentals remain supportive of the gold price. Once the
gloomy and somewhat uncertain macroeconomic picture is
factored in, it is our view that the gold price remains well
supported, with a bias to the upside.
It was in this context that your board took the decision in
September to eliminate the hedge book, once and for all
ending the forced sale of our production at discounts to
market prices. This was made possible by the reconstruction
of the company’s balance sheet over the past two years.
Investment grade debt ratings awarded in April by both
Moody’s and S&P paved the way for the issue of $700m,
10-year bonds and $300m, 30-year bonds, the latter being a
first for a South African corporate. A syndicate of 16 banks
also provided a renewed, four-year revolving credit facility.
With that balance sheet structure in place, the difficult call
was made in September to issue new equity and a
mandatory convertible bond, together totalling almost
$1.6bn, to provide the final financing – over and above cash
and existing debt of about $1bn – to eliminate the remaining
3.0Moz of gold committed under hedge contracts.
The final hedge contract was eliminated on 7 October, not
only achieving a key strategic objective but also enhancing
cash flow generation capacity and AngloGold Ashanti’s ability
to finance an unmatched slate of growth projects across our
global operations and development portfolio.
Now the hard work really begins, to consistently achieve our
goal of earning a return of at least 15% on invested capital,
throughout the investment and commodity price cycles. Our
teams worked diligently during the year to set the foundation
for growth and improved operating performance across our
global suite of 20 gold-producing assets.
Project ONE, the change model designed to modernise and
improve operating practices and reduce volatility across the
business, thereby increasing productivity, while at the same
time better clarifying role accountability, was implemented at
an additional 15 sites (mines and processing plants) in 2010,
adding to the eight that went live in 2009. All in all,
145 employees are engaged full-time in ensuring that this
revolutionary operating framework is embedded across the
business to achieve an ambitious set of safety, environmental,
operating and financial targets. While this is undoubtedly a
time-consuming and complex endeavour, our collective
commitment to Project ONE deepened further during the year
as we saw significant successes achieved at the Mponeng
plant, at Geita and also the South American operations.
The early roll-out at the more complex and labour intensive
South African underground mines also yielded positive early
results and showed the benefit to be gleaned from
increasing the focus on planning and organisation and
ensuring that the right person does the right job, at the right
time, in the right way.
In line with my commitment made in 2009, we cemented the
hard won improvements in Brazil and Argentina, which now
boast the company’s lowest-cost assets. Crucially, AGA
Mineração and Cerro Vanguardia both have exciting – and
board approved – growth prospects ahead of them. At
Cripple Creek & Victor, in the US, the much needed operating
turnaround was flawlessly executed by the team, who are
now looking to further production expansions with the
installation of a high-grade milling circuit.
The Americas region, a strong business in its own right under
Ron Largent’s leadership, now has plans in place to grow
production over the next five years from the 842,000oz
achieved in 2010, to around 1.2Moz by 2013. In addition,
exploration drilling restarted at La Colosa, in Colombia, after a
hiatus of more than two years due to permitting constraints,
and prefeasibility work commenced at the Gramalote joint
venture, raising the prospect of significant additional growth
over the medium term from the world’s most prospective new
goldfield. We will continue to be cautious and diligent in
moving ahead in Colombia, where we have an enviable
position in the world’s most exciting new gold district, at an
entry cost of almost zero, once the proceeds from farm-ins,
joint ventures, asset sales and spin-offs are taken into account.