St Barbara confident of assets’ worth

 ST BARBARA remains confident in the long term value of the company’s assets, including its Pacific operations, the miner said.

In a recent annual general meeting, the company announced that its board and executive management were acutely aware of the financial hardship that shareholders had experienced over the past 12 months.

St Barbara said it remained intensely focused on re-building the conditions for the company’s success and financial re-rating.

The company said this after it got hit by global downturn in gold price and shortfall in production in its Simberi (New Ireland) and Gold Ridge (Solomon Islands) operations.

Managing director and chief executive Tim Lehany said: “Despite the circumstances we find ourselves in, we continue to believe that the current operations of St Barbara are more than capable of achieving that goal, given a reasonable gold price scenario on a sustained basis.

“For the time being, we will seek to optimise our capital position by driving operational efficiencies and delivering on our production forecasts. 

 “As we entered the 2013 financial year, expectations of a strong and increasing US$ goldprice were high.It was then about US$1,600 (K3,874) per ounce, the US economy was still supported by quantitative easing and the inter-country European community crisis remained unresolved. The increasing  geopolitical instability in the Middle East overlaid thecontinuing Uncertainty in the global financial markets.

“As part of the board’s thinking on future capital management strategies, oncefunds for debt repaymentshave been quarantined, dividends may also be considered if andwhen the Company isin a position to do so.

“Our overriding intention is to create shareholder value, including the generation of strong cash flows capable of supportingdividend payments according to profitability levelsand market circumstance.