Hedging Information, page-13

hi speculator
the AUD hedges look bad due to not only the rise in the USD gold price but fall in AUD. They are not however dissimilar to the price locked in by many others. Having said that they come out of this quarter with around 25% for next 18 months prod hedged so no reason why they couldn’t lock away a few AuD dominated forward sales for next year . Hedges will always look poor when realised price is rising but similarly they look good when the reverse is happening .

put options I know a considered expensive vs forward sales as they cost money vs forward sales attracting a higher gold price so the further out you go , the bigger the time value you have to pay within the premium vs the current situation where the further out you go with forward gold sales the higher price you get so the difference may be 80-90 USD per oz

another option is to combine a put and call option and lock on current price would some upside , eg selling a 1700 put and 1850 call . Cost would be less and one would maintain some upside