Kinross reports loss on mine writedown

TORONTO: Canada's Kinross Gold Corp reported a quarterly loss on Wednesday as an impairment charge related primarily to its Tasiast project in Mauritania outweighed a boost in revenue.

The gold miner took a $3.21 billion after-tax, non-cash impairment charge, of which Tasiast was responsible for $3.09 billion. The remainder was attributed to the Chirano project in Ghana, which Kinross also acquired as part of its 2010 takeover of Red Back Mining.

Kinross reported a loss of $2.99 billion, or $2.62 cents a share, in the quarter ended Dec 31. That compared with a year-ago loss of $2.79 billion, or $2.45.

Excluding one-time items, the company reported a profit of $276.5 million, or 24 cents in the quarter, compared with $187.2 million, or 16 cents, in the year-ago period.

Quarterly revenue rose 29 percent to $1.19 billion.