Update Goldcorp (GG)
After the market close yesterday, March 11, Goldcorp (GG) reported fourth quarter 2009 earnings of 25 cents a share (excluding one-time items). That was in line with the Wall Street consensus. Revenue climbed by 27.8% to $778 million. That was substantially above the $732 million Wall Street estimate.
For the quarter Goldcorp reported production of 601,300 ounces of gold.
The news was good enough so that investors can pardon CEO Chuck Jeannes if he sounded like he was crowing. “Achieving record gold production at the lowest cash costs of any major gold mining company while increasing gold reserves for a sixth consecutive year made 2009 a very successful year for Goldcorp,” he said in his company’s press release. “In addition, we brought one of our cornerstone mines, Penasquito, into operational production on time and on budget and repositioned another, the prolific Red Lake mine, for long term success. With Pueblo Viejo advancing on time toward first gold production in late 2011, the three major drivers of our five-year, 57% growth profile remain well on track. We also enhanced our outstanding project pipeline with the recent closing of two acquisitions that brought us the Camino Rojo project near Penasquito and the El Morro project in Chile.
Update Potash of Saskatchewan (POT)
Potash of Saskatchewan (POT) has been telling investors for more than a month that it believes that demand is picking up and that prices for potash fertilizer would start to climb in the first quarter of 2010.
I guess the company really meant it.
Yesterday, March 11, after the close of trading Potash raised earnings guidance for the first quarter to a range of $1.30 to $1.50 a share. That is a huge leap from prior guidance of 70 cents to $1 a share set only on January 28. The Wall Street consensus had been for earnings of 94 cents a share. The company said it would make any revisions to guidance for the full year when it reported first quarter earnings on April 29.
The increase in guidance follows hard on the heels of news from Canpotex, the export arm of Canada’s fertilizer producers, that it was increasing export prices for potash. The price increase, effective immediately on all new sales, took prices to $415 a ton for standard and $430 a ton for granular grade.
In the January 28 guidance that accompanied fourth quarter earnings, the company had projected potash prices of just $365 a ton for 2010. At the time I called first quarter 2010 guidance laughably low. “The numbers don’t make a whole lot of sense except as a reaction by the company to seeing its guidance get smashed to the downside in quarter after quarter,” I wrote.
The jump to $415 to $430 a ton in March, however, is a bigger increase than I’d expected this early in the year.
Oil drilling failure rate surges at the Western majors
It’s not a factor now in the climbing price of oil but the trend certainly doesn’t portend cheaper oil down the road. Or a rosy future for the Western oil giants.
In 2009 Chevron’s (CVX) drilling failure rate climbed to 35%. More than one-third of exploratory wells came up dry. That compares to a 10% failure rate in 2008.
And that’s by no means an isolated increase in the drilling failure rate. ConocoPhillips (COP) saw its failure rate climb to 43% in 2009 from 32% in 2008.
Higher failure rates mean that it gets more and more expensive to find new oil to replace what’s been pumped out of the ground. Chevron’s target is a modest 1% increase in oil and gas production this year. ConocoPhillips is forecasting a 2.7% drop in production in 2010.
The reasons for the climbing failure rate are pretty simple.
Update Goldcorp (GG)
What you want in a gold stock is a company with rising reserves and falling costs. Goldcorp’s (GG) end of 2009 report on reserves shows that it’s still delivering rising reserves. We’ll see how the company is doing on costs when it reports after the market closes on March 11.
In 2009, the company said in February reserves grew by 5.3% to 48.8 million ounces from 46.3 million ounces at the end of 2008.
Update Vale (VALE)
I think we’ve just seen the end of the fixed long-term contract pricing system for iron ore. That pricing system may not know it’s dead yet. But right now it’s dead system walking.
Brazil’s Vale (VALE) has told domestic customers that it will raise iron ore prices by 40% in March and 40% in April. That will bring contract prices for these customers into line with iron ore prices on the spot market.
No waiting for the annual negotiations with Korean, Japanese and (until recently) Chinese steelmakers to set a price for long-term contracts.
Now iron ore for Brazilian customers on long-term contracts will sell at a price close to the spot price set by the global market. BHP Billiton has already signaled that it believes spot pricing is the future in this market. The Australian miner is trying to move the bulk of its business to this market-price system.
