By Andrei Skvarsky.
S&P Global Ratings has assigned a long-term rating of ‘BB- ‘ with a ‘stable’ outlook to Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company (NMMC), the world’s fourth-largest gold producer.
This is the first rating obtained by the state-owned company from the New York City-based agency, NMMC said in a statement.
One component of this rating is a ‘bb+’ assessment of NMMC’s stand-alone credit profile – a metric for creditworthiness in the absence of intervention from a parent company, affiliate or government. NMMC said this was the highest SACP evaluation to have been given by S&P to an Uzbekistan-based company.
S&P said in a statement that in 2023 NMMC produced 2.9m ounces (82 tonnes) of gold, an amount the agency attributed to a “low cost of production and vast reserves”.
NMMC’s total cash cost of gold, $745 per ounce, in 2023, S&P said, was “one of the lowest” among companies rated by the agency and the company’s total announced gold reserves of 148m ounces (4,200 tonnes) “should allow it to remain among the largest gold miners globally for years to come”.
NMMC said a deposit in the vicinity of the town of Muruntau (Muruntov) contains a 101m-ounce (2,900-tonne) share of this amount and is being developed in a project run by the Muruntau-Myutenbai mine, one the world’s largest open-pit gold mines.
According to the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in 2023 Uzbekistan’s economy grew by 6 per cent.
The EBRD said Central Asia as a whole has recorded strong growth recently. The bank expects the region’s economies too grow by 5.4 per cent in 2024 and by 5.9 per cent in 2025.
According to the EBRD, Central Asia as a whole has recorded strong growth over the last two years despite natural disasters.
NMMC said in its statement that its business accounts for 6.3 per cent of Uzbekistan’s gross domestic product.
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