Newmont is the world's largest gold mining company. It digs gold out of the ground at 13 mines spread across countries including the United States, Australia, Ghana, Mexico, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Canada, Argentina, and Suriname. Almost everything it earns comes from selling that gold. In 2025, gold made up 85% of total sales revenue. The company also pulls out copper, silver, lead, and zinc as side products at several mines, and those add meaningful extra income. Newmont does not refine gold into jewelry or electronics. It mines raw ore, processes it into gold bars called doré, ships those to refiners, and gets paid for the purified metal. The price it receives changes every single day based on what gold trades for on global markets. The diagram below traces where the money goes.
How Newmont Makes Money
flowchart TD
A["Mine Operations
12 active sites"] --> B["Gold & Metal Extraction
5.9B oz gold, 296M lbs copper"]
B --> C["Doré & Concentrate Production
$22.7B revenue"]
C --> D["Product Sales
85% gold, 15% copper/other"]
D --> E["Operating Cash Flow
$10.3B"]
E --> F["Free Cash Flow
$7.3B"]
F --> G["Capital Reinvestment
exploration, equipment, sites"]
G --> A
F --> H["Shareholder Returns
dividends, buybacks"]
I["Reserve Base
118.2M oz proven/probable"] --> A
A --> I
Five years of financial data tell a clear story about where this company has been and where it is now. Revenue was roughly flat from 2021 to 2023, sitting between $11.8 billion and $12.2 billion. Then something changed. In late 2023, Newmont completed a $13.5 billion all-stock deal to absorb Newcrest Mining, an Australian gold and copper company. That deal added mines in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Canada overnight. Revenue jumped to $18.7 billion in 2024 and then to $22.7 billion in 2025. The company did not just buy more mines and keep them all. It immediately sold off six mines it considered non-core, collecting $4.3 billion from those sales. The result is a leaner, larger portfolio focused on its strongest assets.
Newmont Annual Revenue (2021 to 2025)
Revenue in billions of USD. The sharp rise from 2023 to 2024 reflects the Newcrest acquisition closing in November 2023. The 2025 increase reflects a full year of Newcrest assets plus higher gold prices.
The cash picture is just as striking. Operating cash flow dropped from $4.3 billion in 2021 to $2.8 billion in 2023, a rough stretch when the company was absorbing acquisition costs and dealing with mine disruptions. Free cash flow, the money left after paying for capital spending, fell to just $0.1 billion in 2023. That was the low point. By 2025, operating cash flow had surged to $10.3 billion and free cash flow reached $7.3 billion. Debt also turned around. Net debt peaked at $5.9 billion in 2023 and by 2025 the company had flipped to a net cash position of $2.5 billion, meaning it holds more cash than it owes in debt.
$0.1B
Free Cash Flow 2023
$7.3B
Free Cash Flow 2025
The turnaround from near-zero free cash flow in 2023 to $7.3 billion in 2025 was driven by higher gold prices, a full year of Newcrest mines, and the removal of weaker assets through divestitures.
A large part of that improvement came from gold prices themselves. The average price Newmont received for gold rose from $1,954 per ounce in 2023 to $2,408 in 2024 and then $3,498 in 2025. By early 2026, gold was trading above $5,000 per ounce on the London market. Higher prices flow almost directly to the bottom line once a mine is already running, because the cost of digging does not rise as fast as the price of what is dug up.
Why Gold Prices Move So Much
Gold does not get used up the way oil or copper does. Most gold ever mined still exists somewhere in the world. Its price rises and falls based on investor fear, interest rates, currency values, and government actions. When people worry about the economy or inflation, they often move money into gold, pushing the price up. This makes gold mining revenue highly sensitive to events completely outside the company's control.
That sensitivity is the central risk. Newmont's filing lists commodity price volatility as its highest-severity risk factor. A big drop in the gold price would shrink revenue sharply and could force the company to stop mining lower-quality deposits that are only worth running at high prices. Costs have also been rising. Labor, fuel, electricity, and equipment costs have gone up at multiple sites. Argentina has experienced particularly high local inflation, pushing costs at Cerro Negro higher. Some mines also face rising government royalties, as Ghana is currently considering replacing a flat 5% royalty with a sliding scale that could reach 12% when gold prices are high.
2026
crisis
Dispute With Barrick Over Nevada Gold Mines
In January 2026, Newmont told its partner Barrick that it had found evidence of mismanagement at their shared Nevada Gold Mines joint venture. Newmont claims Barrick diverted resources from the joint venture to benefit Barrick's own separate Fourmile project. Newmont holds a 38.5% stake in Nevada Gold Mines but does not control it. Barrick operates it. This dispute is unresolved and Newmont itself has said it could have a material adverse effect on returns from Nevada, which is one of its key assets.
Beyond Nevada, Newmont faces a structural challenge that every gold miner confronts. Each ounce of gold dug up is gone forever. The company must constantly find and prove new deposits to replace what it has mined, or production eventually shrinks. As of December 31, 2025, Newmont reported 118.2 million attributable ounces of proven and probable gold reserves. Exploration is expensive, often fails, and buying reserves from other companies costs more in a rising gold price environment. There are also real legal and environmental pressures. In 2025, the company faced lawsuits claiming it misrepresented production forecasts, a fatal clash between police and community members at a Ghana mine, and safety shutdowns at Cerro Negro in Argentina. Cleanup obligations at past mine sites, especially Yanacocha in Peru, carry uncertain long-term costs that may rise as water regulations tighten.
118.2M oz
Attributable proven and probable gold reserves as of December 31, 2025
What 'Reserves' Actually Means
A gold reserve is the amount of gold in the ground that a company has already found, tested, and confirmed it can mine at a profit using today's prices and technology. It is not the total gold that might be in the ground. Reserves shrink every year as gold is mined out, and growing them back requires successful exploration or acquisitions. The reserve estimate can also change if gold prices fall or costs rise, because ore that was profitable to mine at $3,000 per ounce may not be profitable at $1,500.
Newmont also carries a heavy tax burden. Its effective tax rate across all jurisdictions reached 40% in 2025, driven by high rates in Papua New Guinea at 74%, Peru at 107%, and Canada at 46%. Different countries take different slices of profits, and tax rules keep changing. Ghana's stability agreement, which had capped taxes for years, expired on December 31, 2025, exposing Newmont to higher rates and new royalty structures going forward.
$10.3B
Operating cash flow in 2025, up from $2.8B in 2023
The Bet
Gold prices stay high enough, for long enough, to justify the scale Newmont has built. The company spent $13.5 billion to acquire Newcrest, carries 118 million ounces of reserves that must be replaced over time, and operates mines in countries where costs and taxes are rising. All of that machinery only produces the financial results shown in 2025 if the gold price remains well above the company's all-in sustaining cost of roughly $1,609 per ounce. If gold prices retreat sharply and stay low, the revenue and cash flow numbers reverse quickly, the reserve math gets harder, and the debt-free balance sheet could shift back into deficit.
Open question
Newmont has transformed itself in two years. It is bigger, simpler, debt-free, and generating more cash than at any point in its recent history. Most of that improvement came from a gold price that nearly doubled between 2023 and 2025, not from mining more ounces. In fact, consolidated gold production fell from 6.5 million ounces in 2024 to 5.5 million ounces in 2025 largely because of the divestitures. Is the financial strength shown in 2025 a reflection of a permanently better business, or is it mostly a reflection of an unusually high gold price that the company has no control over?
Compiled · 10-K · FY2025
Commodity Price Volatility
The company's business depends on prices for gold, copper, silver, lead, and zinc, which change daily based on factors beyond its control like government actions, interest rates, and investor sentiment. Big price drops could force the company to stop mining some deposits, reduce reserves, and cut spending on new projects, which would harm profits and cash flow.
Reserve Replacement
As the company mines ore, it must find new deposits to maintain production long-term. Exploration is risky and often fails, and buying reserves from others is expensive and competitive. If the company cannot replace depleted reserves, production will eventually decline and hurt future earnings.
Environmental and Closure Liabilities
Mining companies must close and clean up sites after mining ends. The company has set aside money for these costs, but estimates are uncertain and laws keep changing. At Yanacocha in Peru, new water quality rules may require expensive treatment plants, and ongoing studies could lead to much higher cleanup costs than currently estimated.
NGM Joint Venture Dispute
The company owns 38.5% of Nevada Gold & Casinos (NGM) but Barrick operates it and owns 61.5%. In January 2026, the company discovered evidence that Barrick diverted NGM resources to its own Fourmile project. This disagreement could reduce the company's returns from NGM, which is part of its growth strategy.
Operating Cost Inflation
The company's costs for labor, fuel, electricity, and equipment can rise unpredictably. Some operations in Argentina and other countries have experienced high inflation, which increases costs without raising metal prices. A major sustained cost increase could make some mines less profitable or unprofitable.
10-K Item 1A · Risk Factors
