Randgold Resources has proposed an increase in its dividend for 2016 of 52%, to US$1.00 per share, based on a record year and its accumulated cash at the end of the period. The company has paid dividends each year since 2006.
The increase comes after the company achieved record gold production in 2016 of 1.25Moz, earning US$2.64 per share. The company ended 2016 with US$516 million in cash, exceeding its US$500 million target, and is debt-free.
The company’s 10-year business plan shows a business which will remain profitable at a long-term gold price of US$1 000/oz while producing gold at an average annual rate of approximately 1.2Moz and generating cash that will support continued investment in the future as well as dividends. Randgold has a strong, high grade reserve base to support these projections.
About Randgold Resources
Randgold Resources is an African focused gold mining business with operations primarily in Mali. It is headquartered in Jersey, Channel Islands, and is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.
Major discoveries that it lists include the 7.5Moz Morila deposit, the 7.2Moz Yalea deposit and the 5.8Moz Gounkoto deposit, in Mali, the 4.9Moz Tongon deposit in Côte d’Ivoire and the 3.3Moz Massawa deposit in eastern Senegal.
Randgold’s operations
Randgold Resources financed and built the Morila mine which, since October 2000, it says has produced more than 6Moz of gold and distributed more than $2 billion to stakeholders. Morila is now a tailings retreatment operation, scheduled for closure in 2019. Randgold also financed and built the Loulo operation which started as two open pit mines in November 2005. Since then, two underground mines have been developed at the Yalea and Gara deposits.
The company’s Tongon mine in Côte d’Ivoire poured its first gold in November 2010. Production from the Gounkoto open pit operation, south of Loulo, began in 2011. Following completion of a feasibility study, Randgold says that it has been decided to proceed with the Gounkoto super pit which is more economically attractive than a smaller pit and underground operation.
In 2009, Randgold acquired a 45% interest in the Kibali project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The mine was developed and is being operated by Randgold. First gold was poured in the third quarter of 2013 from open pit operations and commissioning of the full underground operation was scheduled for Q4 2017.
Randgold also has a major project at Massawa in Senegal where it says the discovery of the Sofia deposit in 2016 has led to the completion of an updated economic assessment of the viability of the combined project and a feasibility study is currently underway. It also says that it has an extensive portfolio of organic growth prospects, supported by intensive exploration programmes in Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Mali and Senegal.
Randgold increases dividend by 52% after record year: LSE:RRS