African Barrick Gold profit alert

Shares in African Barrick Gold tumbled by 3 per cent after rising costs and falling production forced the miner to issue a profits warning.

Reporting a 72 per cent drop in third-quarter profit to $29m (£18m), its chief executive Greg Hawkins said: “This has been a challenging quarter for ABG. We were expecting to see a step-up in production levels, leading into the end of the year and 2013, but there have been production interruptions and issues across each of our sites.” It now expects full-year production to be around 5 per cent to 10 per cent below the bottom of its previous range of 675,000-725,000 ounces of gold, he added. Gold production fell 19 per cent in the third quarter to 147,786 ounces.

The shares fell 16.5p to 465p.