Newmont is converting a historically high gold price into cash and a shrinking share count, even as the company works through a planned trough production year after selling non-core mines and absorbing a seismic stoppage at Cadia. The investment debate is not whether the miner can print cash at current metal prices. The debate is whether that cash conversion survives a lower realized gold price, a Ghana fiscal reset, and a cash settlement that recasts the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture. At mid-September the equity trades near $123.
Second-quarter attributable gold output of 1.3 million ounces sat on a realized price of $4,414. By-product all-in sustaining costs, the industry's full-cycle cash cost per ounce after sustaining capital and by-product credits, printed at $1,621. That spread still throws off enormous cash, yet it narrowed from the first quarter as Cadia sat idle and Ghana royalties stepped up. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization reached $3.8 billion. Free cash flow for the quarter was a second-quarter record.
Management left full-year attributable production guidance at 5.3 million ounces and cost guidance inside the published band. Shareholders have already received $1.9 billion since the prior results call through dividends and buybacks. The next several quarters decide whether Cadia returns to a normal run rate, whether the Nevada settlement is a value-accretive land swap or an expensive peace, and whether Ghana's new royalty and export rules stay containable. If gold merely holds and ounces arrive on plan, the buyback remains self-funded.