All eyes will be on Polymetal International when the Anglo-Russian miner releases its full-year figures on Wednesday.
The gold and silver mining group has committed to releasing the results as planned – though in light of the conflict in Ukraine investors and analysts will be far more focused on the company’s outlook than the cold hard numbers from 2021.
Shares have fallen 50 per cent this year, including 43 per cent this week alone. Polymetal has sought to reassure its backers that its mines in Russia and Kazakhstan are continuing to operate as normal and that it has not been affected by the war or sanctions.
It also said it is already contingency planning, selecting equipment suppliers and securing sales channels that will keep business running smoothly. Whether this will all still be the case in a few days’ time is anybody’s guess.
Either way, Wednesday will be an unusual and extreme test of shareholders’ mettle.
In practical terms, investors will be keen to know what sort of costs might be added to the FTSE100 group’s spending in 2022. In 2021 it was already grappling with higher costs.
Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘Covid absences and also an increase in capital expenditure has seen costs mount up.’
Despite producing slightly more gold than the year before – around 1.7m ounces – falling precious metals prices have added more strain. While Polymetal and its peers benefited in 2020, when Covid chaos sent gold prices soaring, it is on the back foot compared with industrial metals miners whose materials are in high demand.
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