...September 1, 2021 HONG KONG (S&P Global Ratings) Sept. 1, 2021--Shandong Gold Group Co. Ltd.'s (SDG; ###-/Stable/--) earnings should recover in 2022 as operations return to normal by the end of this year, S&P Global Ratings said today. We expect the China-based miner's credit metrics to temporarily breach our downside trigger this year after it suspended production following a mine safety inspection. The production halt led to an 80% decline in first-half EBITDA. SDG's EBITDA in 2021 is likely to drop by over 40% from a record-high Chinese renminbi (RMB) 8.5 billion in 2020, before recovering to 2020 levels in 2022 on normalized operations and absent the COVID-19 disruptions of last year. This is based on our gold price assumptions of US$1,800 per ounce for the rest of 2021 and US$1,600 per ounce in 2022. Our base case assumes SDG's mined gold output will drop notably to about 31-32 tons this year, from 45 tons in 2020, then rebound to about 50 tons in 2022. As of August 2021, daily production...
