Meredith Bandy - VP of IR Gary Goldberg - President & CEO Laurie Brlas - EVP & CFO

John Bridges - JPMorgan Patrick Chidley - HSBC Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank Adam Graf - Cowen Tanya Jakusconek - Scotiabank Misha Levental - Cowen

Good morning, and welcome to the Newmont Mining Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Earnings Conference Call. All lines will be on a listen-only mode until we open for question and answers. Today's conference is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, please disconnect at this time. I'd now like to turn conference over to Meredith Bandy, Vice President Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, and good morning everyone. Welcome to Newmont's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us on the call today are Gary Goldberg, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Laurie Brlas, Chief Financial Officer. They and other members of our Executive Team will be available to answer questions at the end of the call. Before I go any further, please take a moment to review the cautionary statement shown here, or refer to our SEC filings, which can be found on our website, www.Newmont.com. Now I'll turn it over to Gary.

Thank you, Meredith, and thanks for joining us this morning. I'm pleased to report that we made great progress delivering on our plans in 2014. Specifically, we significantly improved our safety, cost, and productivity performance, while achieving our production plans. We raised nearly $800 million by selling non-core assets, and began construction on our new mine in Surinam. We optimized our project pipeline to create a suite of near-term opportunities for profitable growth in Nevada, Ghana, and Australia. Finally, we significantly strengthened our balance sheet while generating value for our shareholders. I'll turn to Slide 4 to review more details. Strong safety performance is essential to running an efficient business. In 2014, we reduced our injury rates another 17% to historic lows, ending the year with one of the lowest rates in the mining industry. Our people are recognized for their leadership in this area. Most recently, our team at Waihi took first place in the New Zealand mine's rescue competition, and at Akyem they received the Best Safe Mine in Ghana Award. As proud as we are of these accomplishments, we still have work to do to make Newmont a safer business. We mourn the loss of Brian Holmes, a contractor who died in January while working at our Leeville operations in Nevada. Our thoughts are with his family, as we renew our commitment to eliminating all injuries at Newmont. Turning to Slide 5, I'll focus on our performance in each of the 3 pillars of our strategy. The first part of our strategy is to improve our underlying business. During 2014, we lowered our all-in sustaining costs by more than $500 million, or more than $100 per ounce, and met our plans to produce more than 4.8 million ounces of gold. We also kept our all-in sustaining costs under $1,000 an ounce for the second quarter in a row. The second part of our strategy is to strengthen our gold portfolio. During 2014, we made significant progress on our Turf Vent Shaft in Nevada, and broke ground on our new mine in Surinam, both of which will add lower cost production in stable jurisdictions. We also continued to optimize our project pipeline, and I'll talk more about that later in the call. Finally, we streamlined our portfolio by selling assets that no longer fit our strategy of operating low cost, long-life mines, and as a result have generated $1.4 billion over the past 2 years. The third part of our strategy is to generate value for our shareholders while improving financial flexibility and balance sheet strength. During 2014, we generated $2.1 billion in adjusted EBITDA, and $341 million in free cash flow, an improvement of nearly $700 million over 2013. At the end of the year, we had $2.4 billion in cash on our balance sheet, a 50% improvement from 2013. We also made an early payment of $100 million toward our existing term loan, and returned $114 million in dividends to our shareholders during the year. Summing up our 2014 performance, we remain focused on our strategic priorities while controlling what we could control, and ended the year with a much stronger and healthier business as a result. Turning to Slide 6, and a look at our 2014 production. You will recall that we sold Midas, Jundee, and La Herradura in 2014. Absent the impact of these divestments, our 2014 gold production was in line with our 2013 levels, and we are positioned to deliver steady gold production over the next several years, as well. I'll discuss this more when we review our guidance. We increased our gold production outlook twice in 2014, and finished the year near the top end of our original guidance, even without adjusting for divestments. Our priority is still to deliver value over volume, and I'll turn to our cost performance on Slide 7. You can see the progress we have made over the last 3 years, lowering our all-in sustaining costs by 15% since 2012. In 2014, we improved our gold all-in sustaining cost guidance twice as a result of steadily exceeding our savings targets. We finished the year 2% below the bottom of our final published range, and 10% below our 2013 costs. This adds up to more than $500 million in adjusted savings, as we see on Slide 8. We want to provide a clear view of our cost savings from 2013 to 2014, and to demonstrate how much of that amount resulted from improved technical and operational fundamentals. Our consolidated all-in sustaining cost decreased by $1.2 billion from 2013 to 2014. Of that decrease, $243 million was the result of portfolio changes, including divestments, the Akyem startup, and the four-month shut-down of Batu Hijau due to the export issues. A further $50 million was related to favorable oil and exchange rate movements. Finally, we took out $386 million related to inventory valuation changes. After excluding these items, we generated savings of $524 million in 2014. Let's turn to the main components of those savings on Slide 9. As you can see, more than half of Newmont's savings stem from improvements to our costs applicable to sales, which we reduced by almost 6% compared to 2013. I'll point out that this is the first time we've reduced our cost applicable to sales since 2009. We also stabilized our sustaining capital spend at lower and sustainable levels. Some of the work we did to achieve these operational improvements included reducing truck cycle times and improving payloads at Carlin, Twin Creeks, Yanacocha and Tanami, realigning mining and milling rates at Ahafo, reducing supplier and contractor costs by self-performing mining and maintenance activities, and negotiating better rates at Boddington, Carlin, and our operations in Ghana, and improving equipment reliability and tire life at Ahafo, Boddington, Twin Creeks, and Yanacocha. Another 23% of our savings came from lowering advanced projects and exploration costs by 27% to focus on our highest-margin opportunities. Finally, we lowered general and administrative costs across the portfolio. Turning to our exploration efforts, our latest reserves and resources statement reflects our ongoing focus on value and quality, as summarized on Slide 10. We added 3.3 million ounces to our gold reserve base last year, partially offsetting 5.5 million ounces of depletion. Our total gold reserves decreased from 88.4 million ounces in 2013 to 82.2 million ounces as of the end of 2014. About 40% of our net year-over-year reduction, or 2.5 million ounces, was associated with divesting non-core assets. Another 25%, or 1.5 million ounces, was due to model revisions and mine design changes, primarily at Turquoise Ridge and Boddington. Our most significant gold reserve additions were made near existing operations in favorable jurisdictions. These include about 700,000 ounces each at Tanami and the Carlin underground mines, 300,000 ounces at Waihi, and 200,000 ounces at Long Canyon. We also had notable additions at Merian. Turning to Slide 11, we added almost 600,000 ounces of gold reserves at Merian in 2014, half of which is soft saprolite ore, bringing our total reserves to 4.8 million ounces on a 100% basis. As you know, the government of Surinam invested just over $100 million in a 25% stake in Merian late last year. The government is managing its interest through its state-owned oil company, which has been operating in-country for 33 years, and brings a wealth of development experience to the partnership. I visited Surinam in December to meet our new partners and to visit the team. We are making good progress on all fronts. About 900 people are trained and working. Earth works are advancing well, and community agreements and environmental controls are in place. The project remains on budget and on schedule to begin production in late 2016. Before I hand it over to Laurie to talk about our financial performance, I also want to touch briefly on Indonesia and Ghana. You'll recall that PTNNT received a 6-month export permit late last September. We're very proud of the team's performance in executing a safe and efficient ramp-up to full capacity at Batu Hijau in October. The mine is just getting into the higher-grade portion of the ore body now. The new Indonesian administration is getting settled, and our initial meetings to renew our export permit and contractor work have been constructive. I'll keep you informed as we work through the details. Turning to Ghana, in late January the government imposed load-shedding requirements on all businesses. We are in discussions with the government, along with other large companies, to explore power-conservation alternatives that minimize disruptions to our operations. Our team is also developing contingency plans to maintain steady power generation through other sources, and I'll keep you posted on our progress. With that, I'll hand it over to Laurie to cover our financial results.

Thanks, Gary, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. It was a strong quarter and year for Newmont, as our focus on cost and efficiency improvements continues to pay off. Let's turn to Slide 13 to review recent financial highlights. We worked hard to drive down cost in 2014, and the results speak for themselves. Fourth-quarter gold cost applicable to sales per ounce was down 18% from a year ago, and gold all-in sustaining cost per ounce was down nearly 11% from the year-ago quarter. The global cost reductions we achieved in 2014 helped us to expand free cash flow generation, despite a 10% drop in the gold price year over year. Turning to Slide 14, we delivered $218 million in consolidated free cash flow in the fourth quarter of 2014, and generated a 46% improvement in cash from continuing operations compared to the year-ago quarter, despite the 10% drop in gold price. We reported adjusted net income of $86 million in the most recent quarter, or $0.17 per share, compared to $143 million, or $0.28 per share last year. We added adjusted EBITDA to our release this quarter, and are including it in our performance metrics going forward. I am pleased to report that adjusted EBITDA was up 26% from the prior-year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA benefited from lower cost applicable to sales, lower exploration and advanced projects expense, and lower stockpile adjustments compared to Q4 of 2013. We continue to fund dividends from free cash flow, and earlier this week our Board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.025 per share, in line with our gold price linked dividend. Turning to Slide 15, let's walk through Q4 net income adjustments. The primary adjustments to our GAAP net income include a $23-million gain net of tax related to the sale of La Herradura; a $10-million reclamation settlement; a $14-million impairment, primarily on our marketable securities; and a $43-million tax valuation allowance, of which $32 million was related to asset sales. Adjusted net income also excludes a $24-million loss from discontinued operations. This is a non-cash, marked-to-market adjustment to a royalty obligation. After reconciling for these items, we reported adjusted net income of $86 million, or $0.17 per share, for the most recent quarter. Now turning to Slide 16. In 2014, we strengthened our balance sheet with increased cash from operations, and almost $800 million in net proceeds from the sale of non-core assets. At the end of the fourth quarter, our investment-grade balance sheet had approximately $2.4 billion in cash and equivalents, a $3-billion revolver that is essentially undrawn, and $250 million in marketable securities. That's total liquidity of nearly $6 billion that Newmont can mobilize to invest in our projects, repay debt, or return cash to our shareholders. Slide 17 illustrates our scheduled debt maturities and potential pre-payments. As you can see, we do not have any significant debt due until 2019, and have maintained an investment-grade rating and metrics. Our revolver has just one financial covenant, maximum net debt to book capital of 62.5%. We stood at 24.7% as of December 31. Our net debt at year end was approximately $4 billion. We continue to analyze potential opportunities to pay our liabilities in advance, as we did last quarter when we made a $100-million payment on our term loan. The term loan has no pre-payment penalty, and allows us to pre-pay near-term maturities first, so it's a preferred way to de-lever the balance sheet. We plan to potentially repay $750 million in 2015. That would include our PTNNT project debt, as well as additional payments toward our 2019 term loan. Certainly any pre-payment of debt would be analyzed in the context of the Company's cash position, operating performance, and business environment. However, even assuming lower gold prices, we have adequate financial flexibility to repay more than the $166 million of scheduled 2015 debt payments. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Gary.

Thanks, Laurie. Now I'll walk you through our near-term outlook, which features steady and profitable production, ongoing cost and efficiency improvements, and stable sustaining capital expenditures, turning you to Slide 19. We expect to produce between 4.6 and 4.9 million ounces of gold in 2015, rising to between 4.7 million and 5.1 million ounces by 2017. In North America, we expect gold production to increase slightly over the 3-year period, as we complete the Turf Vent Shaft, and enter a period of lower stripping at Carlin. Potential development of Long Canyon Phase 1 represents additional upside, and I'll talk about that shortly. We're managing our Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesian assets as a single Asia-Pacific region in 2015. At Batu Hijau, we forecast steady gold and copper production increases through higher-grade Phase 6 ore, and higher gold grades and productivity at Tanami. In Africa, we expect production to decline, primarily due to lower-grade ore at Ahafo. However, a potential Ahafo Mill expansion would help offset the impact of lower grades, and I'll touch on that. In South America, production is forecast to decline in 2015 and 2016 before rising in 2017, as new production at Merian offsets the impact of maturing operations at Yanacocha. We're also working on an integrated approach to developing oxide and sulfide deposits to extend profitable production at Yanacocha. Our guidance calls for continuous improvement in costs, as well. Turning to Slide 20, in 2015 we expect our gold all-in sustaining costs to come in between $960 and $1,020 per ounce, in line with our 2014 performance. By 2017, our gold all-in sustaining costs are expected to range from $925 to $1,025 per ounce. Our over-arching goal is to keep all-in sustaining costs below $1,000 per ounce at each of our operations through ongoing cost and efficiency improvements. Our costs could further benefit from lower energy prices and improving foreign exchange rates. Our current outlook assumes the Australian dollar at $0.85 to the US dollar, and oil at $75 per barrel. We have contingency plans in place to ensure that we remain free cash flow positive if there are further fluctuations in metal prices. We are also holding the line on sustaining capital, turning you to Slide 21. Over the last few years, we've improved our capital discipline through a stringent value-assurance program that I've discussed before, and achieving sustainable savings through ongoing improvement initiatives. Looking forward, our outlook calls for holding our sustaining capital costs at between $850 million and $950 million from 2015 through 2017. Note that only our fully funded projects, the Turf Vent Shaft, Merian, and Correnso are included in our outlook, but we are planning to reach decisions on other projects as the year continues. I'll walk you through some of our most prospective projects now on Slide 22. We improved the value and viability of our project pipeline significantly over the last year. Our projects focus on extending mine life, improving our cost portfolio, or opening prospective new mining districts. I'll take a minute to update you on those that are in the execution phase, and those that will come up for funding consideration in 2015. Turning to Slide 23. In Nevada, the Turf Vent Shaft reached its full depth of just over 2,000 feet during the fourth quarter of 2014. The shaft will increase high-grade ore to Mill 6, adding 100,000 to 150,000 ounces annually, while improving costs and efficiency. We expect to be fully operational later this year. As I mentioned, construction at Merian is progressing on budget and on schedule. The mine is expected to be operational in late 2016, and will deliver gold production of between 400,000 and 500,000 ounces at all-in sustaining costs of between $650 and $750 per ounce for the first 5 years of operation, excluding escalation. As a reminder, our share of this project is 75%. Finally, in New Zealand, we're extending the life of our Waihi operation through our new Correnso mine, and will achieve commercial production during this first quarter of 2015. In addition to adding near-term ounces, Correnso provides a drilling platform to explore for other high-grade veins. Turning to Slide 24 and the next projects we will consider developing in 2015. Long Canyon represents a new high-potential mining district in Nevada, and we are approaching development as an extension of existing operations, in order to leverage our expertise and the infrastructure. The project has been optimized to lower capital, generate stronger returns, and reduce the pay-back period. We expect to reach a decision to proceed with the first phase of development at an investment of between $250 million and $300 million in the first quarter of 2015. The project would add between 100,000 and 150,000 ounces of gold annually at competitive costs beginning in early 2017. In Australia, we're advancing our Tanami Expansion project, which includes constructing a second decline in the mine, and building incremental capacity in the plant. We anticipate reaching a decision on investing between $100 million and $120 million to fund this project in the first half of 2015. The Tanami expansion project would add between 50,000 and 60,000 ounces of lower-cost production beginning in 2017, and increase mine life by 4 years. In Ghana, we're evaluating an expansion in the existing Ahafo Mill, which would help offset the impact of lower-grade ore. We anticipate reaching a decision on the mill expansion later this year, and see the potential to bring on 100,000 to 125,000 ounces of production at competitive cost beginning in 2017. I'll wrap up my comments with a look at where we are taking the Company in the future, turning to Slide 25. We advanced our strategy to create a more focused and profitable gold mining business in 2014, and made substantial progress toward our goal to lead the gold sector in creating value for shareholders. Our performance is the result of more than 13,700 employees delivering on their commitments. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank our team for a job well done. Looking forward, we will continue to execute our strategy, which is to improve our underlying business by continuously raising our safety, cost, and technical performance; to strengthen our portfolio by building a longer-life, lower-cost asset base; and finally to create shareholder value by generating cash, and continuing to strengthen our investment-grade balance sheet. In short, we're not aiming to be a better gold Company. We're aiming to be the best. Thank you for your time. I'll turn the call back to the operator now to open the line for questions.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from John Bridges with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Good morning, Gary. Congratulations on the results.

Good morning, John.

Just wondered - I know you can't say very much about Indonesia, but if you can remind us what it is you're negotiating. Your Freeport is doing the contract and the smelter. You're just talking about the contract, is that right?

Yes, we have the extension of our export permit, which comes due the middle of next month, and those are 6-month export permits. That's the first item that we're looking to get as that extended. The second thing, we agreed last year in September to a memorandum of understanding essentially to 6 elements of our contractor work that we would agree to change. Some of those have actually gone into effect, some changes in royalty rates and duties. The rest are - there's changes to the size of the contractor work, those sorts of things. In with that is how we would participate in a smelter. Our position has continued to be that we would support smelter development from the standpoint of providing concentrate to that smelter and looking at that being done on terms that are international economic terms. I'm encouraged by where we are at today in those discussions, and look forward to working with this new administration to come to a clear solution going forward that fits for us and for the country.

Are you in parallel conversations with other people about building a smelter?

We've had discussions clearly with Freeport and with other parties about building a smelter and participating in that.

Okay. As a follow-up, the Ghana costs in 2017 get quite chunky. Could you give us some color on that? Was that the power issue that took the prices so high?

No, what we have, John, is the grades at Ahafo start to drop off, and in this plan we've not included any economics from an Ahafo Mill expansion. What you see is the grade coming down and strip ratio going up in Ghana - or in Ahafo by the end of 2017. The Ahafo Mill expansion would be one of our options to help offset that.

Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate it. Well done on the results. Thanks a lot.

Great. Thanks, John.

Our next question comes from a Patrick Chidley with HSBC.

Good morning. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions, following up on Ghana. No mention really of Subika. I'm wondering, that's obviously a potential source of high grade. Is that not a potential offset, or is there - is it just not a project that you're that advanced on?

No, Subika is still on the list. In fact, as you see it, we've got right now - and it's been a bit of a competition between the mill expansion and the Subika underground as to which one is in a position to be considered to be brought forward first. It still is on our development pipeline, and it does add to grade. Of course, it's at a bit higher cost, being underground, but it's still a viable project alternative for us. That one would be probably later into 2015, early 2016 for consideration.

Okay, thanks. Then thanks for laying out those projects for us that you've got, quite a few advanced projects. Just wanted to get a view on what rate of return you've considered for these projects, and what gold price you would have assumed?

We use - actually, we test all of our projects against a variety of different price assumptions, but clearly take current spot, look out flat without any increase, and then we look at cases both above and below that. In terms of rates of return, we're looking to exceed our cost of capital, plus cover any sort of risk premium that we put on in the different regions. For instance, the project at Merian, we have a project there that we see - especially with some of the additional reserves that have now been added in, a project that has returns that are in the mid-teens at current prices.

Okay, thanks. With regard to those additional reserves we saw, turning out to be quite a chunky deposit there. 2 questions I guess. Firstly, does it mean to say you might be able to expand the rate of production from the current guidance at all, or is that mine-life extension? Second, what are the additional - what was the potential to expand the reserve additionally, in view of what you've done in 2014 on the exploration side?

I think - and this is in particular at Merian, we're looking at least at this stage to extend the mine life. What it really does, because we found half of that was saprolite. It extends that period before you have to make investments in additional power and grinding capacity to be able to process the ore. It actually extends that. What we've been looking at is a 5- to 6-year period. It extends that period.

The additional reserves we just added are not part of the original economics that we've provided, so that's up side which we indicated we expected, but now it's materialized.

Okay, great. Then exploration wise, any discoveries in the area, or something that would be worth highlighting now?

Not today. I have to wait until we get to a better position. But I think we've classified this whole area as a new district for us that has good potential up side, and we're exploring in that region.

Okay, thanks. If I may, just one quick more, sorry. Yanacocha, the oxide and sulfide deposits for life-of-mine extension, any more details on that?

We're going through a project that we call project integral to look at our different options to both extend some of the oxide deposits, either through some of the open-pit opportunities there, as well as the potential to go underground. The sulfide deposits, we get into both gold and gold copper, and we're looking at all those alternatives. We'll keep people briefed as we go through that process. We've got a timetable that puts us really through most of this year, looking with our partners, Buenaventura, at a variety of different options.

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Good morning, everybody. My question I guess more for Laurie, but I really do appreciate the concise EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA break-downs that were provided this quarter. It makes our lives easier.

You're welcome.

Thank you. Also, if you could - you have given us some visual clarity on the CapEx outlook for Merian, but could you be a bit more specific? Just looking at 2015, eye balling the chart on Page 21, it looks like $350 million of CapEx in 2015, and $150 million in 2016. Is that right? A -: Yes, that's reasonable, Jorge. Yes.

Would there be any kind of working capital or inventory cash flow requirements of that project in second half of 2016 as you start to ramp it up?

There might be a little, but it shouldn't be much. We wouldn't be building stockpiles or anything like that. At that point in time, we could change the way that we're processing.

Okay. Thank you again, and great results.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Adam Graf with Cowen. Your line is open.

Thank you and congratulations. I have a couple of specific questions, Gary. Maybe - you've mentioned it briefly, but you could talk about at Batu Hijau where you guys currently stand on an export tax, and how that is going to potentially increase going forward, depending on the status of the completion tests?

Okay. Where we currently are at, we're paying a 7.5% export duty, and that is scheduled to decline to 5% and then to 0% based on progress that's assessed with the Ministry of Mines towards the development of a smelter. At this stage we're working through that process. I understand where Freeport ended up as a data point. I believe they're paying 7.5% in their current extension, so I would expect that could be where we end up, and then see where we end up 6 months from there. It's kind of a staged approach, but that's where we're currently at, Adam.

Okay. Then on a different subject, quite impressive with the expectations at Tanami, and I was hoping you maybe could give us some further details for 2015, 2016, 2017 as you guys see the through-put and the grade profile.

Yes, I think what we'll do there, and that project's coming up for review here within the next couple of months, as we get to the point where we would approve it we'll provide more details on production and cost and returns of that project. But I've been very pleased with the exploration success at both Tanami and the neighboring deposit there, Federation.

One last question, if I may. At Merian, when you guys make the transition, whatever that happens to be from the saprolite ore to the fresh ore, how do you see the incremental increased costs in milling, crushing and milling per ton?

Yes, we're looking - that's probably going to be out in the 2022, 2023 time frame. We'll provide more detail as we get a little bit closer to that. I wouldn't see - the grade stays actually fairly consistent as we go through that, so it's really the ore hardness. You'd have the increased power and grinding costs that would go with that, so your milling processing costs would tend to go up 30% to 40% at that stage.

So 30% to 40% on the say, processing cost per ton?

Yes, just on the processing cost. I think if you carry that back to our all-in sustaining costs that we're looking at something closer to about a 15% increase that would occur at that time. That's why finding more saprolite ore and pushing that time out is always a good thing.

Yes, exactly. Very good. Congratulations again. Thanks for answering my questions.

You bet. Thanks, Adam.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Tanya with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Hi. It's Tanya with Scotiabank. How are you guys? A - Gary Goldberg: Didn't think you changed overnight.

I didn't. I think I'm still publishing under Scotia. Sorry, just back to my train of thought. On Batu Hijau, Gary, can you give us an update? I think it was mentioned on the submarines tailings disposal that you're re-looking that, or we have a permit to update? Secondly, I think there's labor negotiations going on?

Thank you. In regards to tailings, we don't have any permit extensions or changes going on there. We're continuing to work under existing permit. Nothing to flag on that. In terms of labor agreements, both in Ghana and in Indonesia we have labor negotiations going on. Basically, we're working with the representatives in both of those groups to lay out the facts, here's the economics, and work towards a reasonable agreement for all parties. So nothing to report in terms of progress or in terms of issues at either one of those locations.

Then Gary, what sort of labor inflation are you seeing in your assets around the world, like maybe what are you seeing in South America? What are you seeing in Africa and Australia? Gary Goldberg, Newmont Mining Corporation - President & CEO 52 It varies, but we've seen clearly a cooling off in Australia, from what had been historically some double-digit rates down more to the lower range, like 3% to 4%, which is probably similar to what we see in most of the other regions around the world.

Okay. Then Africa and South America?

Same sort of rates in those regions, as well.

Okay. The same with let's say the US, so 3% to 4% would be a natural wage inflation?

Yes.

Okay.

Probably closer to 3%, my COO is saying to me.

Okay, all right. That's good to see, because that was as you know as high as 7%, 8% weighted average not too long ago.

I think the overall commodities cooling off has helped us, as well.

While I have you on, what about the consumables? Are we seeing a bit of relief at all in cyanide costing?

I mentioned when I went through one of the areas where we've been getting some improvements, we've gone back really on almost all of our contracts now through all the regions and seen significant reductions in what those costs are. Cyanide also depends on some of the input costs there, but we have seen some reductions.

Would you be able to give us an idea of what range, because that one had always been a very sticky one, because I think there's just very few suppliers.

I'm going to have to take a look. I don't know off the top of my head what the details are on that and get back to you, Tanya.

We can get back to you, Tanya.

Okay, perfect. We understand on the exploration side the exploration costs, the development costs, and all that. Those are easier to see and we have an idea. Cyanide is always one that seems to be very sticky, with only I think a handful - less than handful of producers.

Yes.

We'll get back to you, Tanya.

Especially if you have to be cyanide compliant, right?

Always.

Yes. Thank you.

Thanks, Tanya.

We have a question from Misha Levental with Cowen.

I was just wondering with Long Canyon you said a funding decision's coming up. What's going to be the basis of the funding decision, and can we get an update on the permit status? When do you think you would need to break ground to stay on track for a 2017 production target?

Thanks, Misha. We're going through the permitting process now. That's basically the last item for review before we get approval to move forward. We're I think making good progress working with the BLM and the folks in the region there, so we'd expect that here any time. As we pointed out, here this quarter. Assuming it occurs this quarter, that keeps us on schedule for 2017. Once we do get that approval, we'll provide more details around that project from the standpoint of capital and returns, but it clearly is a project that we see as a good next step for growth in Nevada, and really a new district in Nevada.

Okay. You don't have a time frame on what the - on how long construction would last?

No. It would - assuming we get this approval here in the next month or so, we would see construction completed and production started in 2017.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We have another question from John Bridges with JPMorgan.

Just a quick follow-up. With Yanacocha, the discussions with Buenaventura, any other options other than the deep oxides and the surface leech? Anything added to that list?

I think just whether - it gets more to the processing options in terms of how you'd process and manage the enargite-type ores are another thing. You look into potential processing and how you might handle some of the concentrates - either concentrate leech, some sort of process like that, and how you might do that.

Okay. We'll look forward to the results of that. Thank you.

Great. Thanks, John.

Our final question comes from Jorge Beristain with Deutsche. Your line is open.

Hi guys, just a follow-up. I would like to welcome Tanya to the Deutsche Bank family. I just want to follow up with Gary really on your view on the copper operations. We did see significant improvements, particularly at Batu Hijau in the fourth quarter. But overall, in aggregate your copper ops are still doing about a $2.39 per pound all-in sustaining cost, pretty close to the world copper price right now. I was wondering, given that some of your competitors have made statements about reaffirming their commitment to gold, and even threatening to put some of their operations into care and maintenance, what your view is at stressed copper prices on how to deal with some of those operations. In other words, are you willing to run those operations at a cash flow loss for a certain period, or are you going to take a harder line and put them on care and maintenance if they're not cash flow positive?

They've got to earn their keep. There's no one that is going to run at a cash flow loss. We used $2.50 copper price when we did our budgets for the next 3 years. We built that sort of thinking in when we did the numbers. I don't see any concerns at all at Batu Hijau at current market prices. At Phoenix and at Boddington, we continue to work to reduce our costs and make sure we're profitable on both the copper and the gold side. They are a combined set of operations. You can't separate the two, as you know. We're looking to make sure they deliver good value throughout the cycle on metal prices.

Great, thank you.

Great. Operator, I'll go ahead and just close things out here. Thank you everyone for joining today. I really look forward to continuing to share how we're executing our strategy to improve our underlying business, to strengthen our portfolio, and to continue to create shareholder value. Thanks again everyone for your time today, and look forward to catching up. Thanks.

That does conclude today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may disconnect at this time.