Newcrest, the largest Australian gold miner, has raised volumes at the same time as deepening inflation fears and geopolitical tensions over the war in Ukraine have lifted the price of the yellow metal to its highest levels in more than a year.

Melbourne-based Newcrest on Thursday said it had produced 479,839 ounces of gold during the March quarter, an increase of 10 per cent on the prior three months, which it attributed to improved mill capacity at its flagship Cadia gold mine in New South Wales and the addition of Canada’s Brucejack mine following its acquisition of Pretium Resources.

However, Newcrest’s quarterly gold production result came in much lower than many in the market had been expecting. A consensus of analysts had forecast Newcrest to produce 549,000 ounces during the period.

“We view the result as weaker than expected, but underlying financial year 2022 production guidance was not cut as we had thought was a risk,” Barrenjoey mining analyst Daniel Morgan said.

Newcrest also flagged delays to the execution of growth projects, including the expansion of Cadia, which Morgan noted as a “negative”.

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“Newcrest is a growth company so not being able to execute on these projects is not a good thing,” he said.

Alex Barkley, a Sydney-based analyst with the Royal Bank of Canada, said the results reflected a “weak quarter of production”, with gold output missing the bank’s forecasts by 9 per cent.

Newcrest operates gold mines in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Canada. In recent years, the company has focused heavily on expanding its presence in the Americas, investing in Ecuador-focused gold and copper explorer SolGold, buying a majority stake in Canadian gold mine Red Chris and acquiring Toronto-listed Pretium Resources, which owns the Brucejack mine.