Centamin: 51% Jump in Gold Production from Egypt's Sukari

Australian mining company Centamin announced a 51% increase in gold production from Egypt's Sukari mine, during the last quarter of 2019.

According to the Financial Times, these positive data put more pressure on Endeavor Mining Company, which is seeking to acquire Centamin.

Centamin said it produced 148.4 thousand ounces of gold in the fourth quarter, its strongest quarterly performance since the end of 2017.

The strong results for the two years come just days before the deadline set for Endeavor to make a strong offer to take over the Australian company.

At the end of 2019, Centamin rejected an acquisition by Endeavor for $ 1.9 billion, citing that the offer did not include real interest for its shareholders. Endeavor has until January 14 to submit the expected acquisition offer.

Endeavour’s biggest shareholder is Naguib Sawiris, the Egyptian billionaire who made his fortune building a telecoms empire extending from Algeria to Pakistan.

During the year 2019, Centamin produced 480.5 thousand ounces of gold from the Sukari Mine, an increase of 2% compared to 2018. This figure is still lower than the company's initial estimate of 490,000 ounces annually.

"Although production for the entire year came below the minimum estimates, which ranged between 490-510 thousand ounces, yet, it exceeded our estimate of 471 thousand ounces," Richard Hatch, Wall Street Analyst at Berenberg Bank said.

It is worth noting that gold prices reached their highest level in nearly 7 years, this week, driven by investor turning into safe havens in light of the growing tensions between Iran and the United States.

According to latest estimates, the Sukari mine includes an estimated reserves of 15.4 million ounces of gold.