Randgold Resources
Ltd posted a 17 percent fall in 2014 profit, hurt by lower gold
prices, but said it would increase its final dividend by 20 percent.
The gold mining company, which has mines in Mali, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), announced it expected to produce 1.20 million to 1.26 million gold ounces in 2015 as production at its Kibali mine in DRC continues to ramp up.
Randgold said profit fell to 271.2 million pounds in the year ended Dec. 31, from 325.7 million pounds a year earlier.
Mark Bristow, chief executive, said that the company can still maintain the profitability of its
mines with gold at $1,000 an ounce. He said he was closely monitoring "stress"
within other miners for takeover opportunities, The Telegraph reports.
Meanwhile, gold moved sharply lower back to the key $1240 level to close out last week, and then to a three week low just below $1230, Seeking Alpha reported.
Gold plunged more than 2 percent on Friday as global stock markets and the dollar rose on stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs data, raising expectations that the Federal Reserve will increase interest rates by midyear. U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by 257,000 last month, topping expectations for 234,000, with the unemployment rate ticking up to 5.7 percent due to more people entering the labor force.
