The world’s largest gold producer Barrick Gold last week reported a significant fourth-quarter loss as several impairment charges, lower realised gold and copper prices and reduced sales volumes weighed on the balance sheet.

For the fourth quarter ended December 31, TSX- and NYSE-listed Barrick reported a narrower – yet significant – net loss of $2.83-billion, or $2.61 a share, compared with a net loss of $3.01-billion, or $3.01 a share in the comparable year-earlier quarter, owing to booking $2.82-billion in impairment charges.

These were mainly related to temporarily suspending the roughly $8.5-billion Pascua-Lama gold mine project, straddling the Argentine/Chilean border; changing the mine plan through high-grading the Porgera mine, in Papua New Guinea, and reducing the mine life from 13 years to 9; lower gold price assumptions and rising costs at Veladero, in Argentina; a lower net present value and delayed first production at the Jabal Sayid copper project, in Saudi Arabia; and as part of its yearly goodwill impairment test, the company recognised a goodwill impairment charge of $551-million for its Australia Pacific gold segment.

Suspension-related costs at Pascua-Lama also totalled $176-million in the period.

For the three months, the adjusted net earn- ings totalled $406-million, or $0.37 a share, compared with adjusted earnings of $1.16- billion, or $1.16 a share in the same period of 2012, reflecting the decrease in realised gold and copper prices and a decline in gold and copper sales volumes.

Wall Street analysts had on average expected adjusted earnings of $0.41 a share on revenue of $2.84-billion.

For the full year 2013, Barrick reported a net loss of $10.37-billion, or $10.14 a share, including after-tax impairment charges of $11.54-billion. This followed $4.4-billion in charges in 2012. The adjusted net earnings were $2.57-billion, or $2.51 a share.

“2013 was a tough year for Barrick by any measure, but with a renewed focus on capital discipline and operational excellence across the board, we have reset our focus and revitalised the company’s prospects. “We will not veer from this course, which has delivered solid results, reduced costs and improved financial flexibility,” Barrick president and CEO Jamie Sokalsky told an analyst telephone conference.

During the quarter, gold output declined 15% to 1.71-million ounces, and gold sales declined 10% to 1.82-million ounces. The average realised price declined 26% to $1 272/oz, while the volatile average spot gold price similarly declined to $1 276/oz.

During the period, the company’s all-inclusive sustaining costs declined 14% to $899/oz, as the company’s cost-cutting initiatives paid off.

Copper output rose 7% to 139-million pounds, but a 13% drop in sales at 134-million pounds were compounded by a 6% drop in the average realised price of $3.34/lb.

Barrick’s fourth-quarter revenues slid 29% to $2.92-billion.

The company expected 2014 gold output of between 6-million and 6.5-million ounces, lower than the full-year 2013 gold output of 7.16-million ounces.

Sokalsky said the lower output in 2014 reflected the company’s strategy to increase its free cash flow and his philosophy of “returns over ounces”.

The company would also continue to divest high-cost, short-life mines, lower production from Cortez, in Nevada, where grades were expected to fall this year, and close the Pierina mine, in Peru. These production declines would be partially offset by an increase in output at Pueblo Viejo, in the Dominican Republic.

The all-in costs per ounce were, however, expected to rise to between $920/oz and $980/oz.

Barrick also slashed its 2014 capital budget to between $2.4-billion and $2.7-billion, down from the $5-billion it spent in 2013.