MINING NEWS technical challenges in the rst six months, but output is scheduled to peak at 750 000 ounces in 2018 as the underground operation reaches full capacity, Randgold says. Other miners have been less successful in Congo. Randgold ' s partner, AngloGold, susp ended op erations in 2013 at the Mongbwalu project, also in northeastern Congo, saying that it couldn ' t make the economics of the project work. In the past decade, mining majors Rio Tinto Group, BHP Billiton Plc, Vale SA and De Beers have all held and abandoned mining licenses in Congo for different minerals without making headway.
Doing business Congo was ranked 184th out of 190 countries on the World Bank ' s ease-of-doing business survey in 2016, but Randgold was able to bring Kibali from feasibility in 2010 to rst gold less than four years later.“ It ' s been way more successful than most people thought,” said Hunter Hillcoat, an analyst at Investec in London.“ �ey operate their own little, dare I say, sovereign state, far removed from regional issues.” Randgold began due diligence on Kibali in 2006, months a�er historic elections brought a nal conclusion to a violent civil war that le� millions of Congolese dead. It acquired the asset in 2009 through a purchase of Moto Goldmines Ltd.“ Before Moto every major gold company in the world had this asset and did nothing,” Willem Jacobs, chief operating officer for central and east Africa, said at the site in November.“ It is very hard for big companies to do what we have done here.”
Negotiation possible A new project would bene t from the infrastructure Randgold has built and the lessons the company has learned since 2009, making it easier to replicate Kibali ' s success, Jacobs said.“ Every country has its own challenges, but the Congolese government is enormously commercial,” he said of the complicated operating environment that many miners have failed to overcome.“ You can always talk, you can always negotiate.” Gold prices hit $ 1 257 on 27 February, well below a record high of $ 1 921.17 an ounce in 2011. Randgold, which says all of its mines make a pro t at a price of $ 1 000, has avoided the worst of the slump so far: It has returned more than 500 % to shareholders in the past decade. �at ' s more than double the second-best performer on the Bloomberg senior gold miner index and one of only six out of the 16 biggest gold members to have given shareholders positive returns over the period. Competitors AngloGold Ashanti, Barrick Gold Corp., Newmont Mining Corp. and Kinross Gold Corp have all lost money for shareholders.“ For a long time they were realistically one of the only invest-able gold names listed in London if you were a large-scale investor,” said Baring ' s Burstow. �at ' s a title slowly coming under pressure from miners such as Acacia Mining Plc and Centamin Plc, Burstow says.“ People have con dence that they can deliver. We just have to watch them carefully.”
FMDZ | Jan- Feb 2017 | Page11