Mining Weekly

NYSE- and JSE-listed petrochemicals company Sasol says its energy business benefitted from higher basic fuel prices, as well as improved refining margins towards the end of the nine months ended March 31, which helped to offset operational headwinds at the group’s mining and Secunda operations. Sasol’s mining productivity has improved albeit at a slower pace than expected. The group expects to meet the lower end of its coal productivity guidance range of between 975 t and 1 100 t per continuous miner per shift for the full-year ending on June 30.

Anglo American subsidiary Kumba Iron Ore has reported a 10% year-on-year decrease in sales to 8.5-million tonnes for the quarter ended March 31, on the back of port performance challenges. About 400 000 t of shipments have been rolled over to the second quarter as a result.

JSE-listed copper miner Copper 360 has informed shareholders that it has noticed "unusual and uncommercial" trades in its shares, resulting in a substantial drop in its traded price. "The trades in question have continued on a systematic and sustained basis for a period of several weeks," it says in a notice published on the JSE's Stock Exchange News Service.

Copper production increasing by 11% as Quellaveco achieved its highest plant throughput rate in Peru, and Collahuasi and El Soldado in Chile benefitting from higher copper grades were among the first-quarter performance aspects that pleased diversified mining company Anglo American in the three months ending March 31. “We’re driving operational excellence across our assets, focusing on stability and effective cost management as levers to deliver significant value through the cycle,” Anglo CE Duncan Wanblad highlighted in a release to Mining Weekly on Tuesday.

Platinum group metals (PGM) miner Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) has reported a decrease in 5E metal-in-concentrate production of 7% to 834 100 oz for the quarter ended March 31, compared with the 901 200 oz produced in the same quarter of last year. Notably, the group’s own-managed PGM production decreased by 6% year-on-year to 504 300 oz, while the purchase of PGM concentrate decreased by 10% year-on-year to 329 000 oz.

Diamond miner De Beers, a subsidiary of diversified miner Anglo American, has lowered its production guidance for the 2024 full-year to between 26-million and 29-million carats in response to the higher-than-average levels of inventory in the market and expectations of only a gradual recovery in demand for rough diamonds. It had previously targeted production of 29-million to 32-million carats this year.

Zambia's State-owned electricity utility Zesco said on Monday it is seeking to import power to avert an energy deficit that could affect output in Africa's second-largest copper producer. The southern African country generates 86% of its electricity from hydropower stations. Power generation has been hit by a severe drought induced by El Nino - a weather phenomenon resulting from the abnormal warming of the waters in the eastern Pacific, which raises temperatures globally.

Diversified mining company Anglo American is taking steps to help to restore an Amazon rainforest equivalent of which less than 10% remains intact. The Mata Atlántica carbon forest is located near Anglo’s Minas-Rio iron-ore mine, in Brazil.

The richness of South Africa’s copper assets were emphasised on Monday when Northern Cape mine developer and explorer Orion Minerals published a standout intercept that sent its shares rocketing up 58% on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Orion, headed by CEO Errol Smart, is primarily listed on the ASX, where it has 1 300 shareholders, and secondarily listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), where it has 28 000 shareholders.

JSE-listed Merafe has reported that its attributable ferrochrome production from the Glencore Merafe Chrome Venture in the first quarter ended March 31 was 77 000 t. This represents a 26% decrease from the 103 000 t produced in the first quarter of 2023.

The Johannesburg High Court on April 19 granted permission to appeal an earlier ruling denying class action certification for 140 000 women and children in Kabwe, Zambia, who allege they have suffered the effects of lead poisoning as a result of a mine formerly owned by Anglo American in the country. In granting permission, Justice Leonie Wendell found that an appeal against her earlier judgment had “reasonable prospects of success on at least one ground of appeal” and that there were “compelling reasons to grant the appeal, as class action law is still being developed in South Africa”, and that “there are current matters of law of public importance which directly implicate constitutional rights”.

Diversified miner South32 has reported an overall improvement in its operating results for the March quarter and record year-to-date production at Hillside Aluminium, in KwaZulu-Natal, and South Africa Manganese, in the Northern Cape, along with a 60% increase in quarterly volumes at Illawarra Metallurgical Coal, in Australia. The group confirmed that its operating unit cost guidance for the 2024 financial year will remain unchanged, with the exception of the group’s Australia Manganese operations, which were affected by the impacts of tropical cyclone Megan.

ASX- and Aim-listed Base Resources and US-based uranium and critical minerals producer Energy Fuels have reached a binding agreement for Energy Fuels to acquire 100% of the issued shares in Base Resources by way of scheme of arrangement. Base shareholders are to receive 0.0260 Energy Fuels common shares plus an unfranked special dividend of A$0.065 for each Base share held, equating to total consideration of about A$0.302 a share.

London-listed Gem diamonds has recovered a 169.15 ct Type II white diamond from the Letšeng mine, in Lesotho. The find marks the fourth diamond greater than 100 ct that Gem has recovered in the year-to-date.

Aim-listed Goldplat reports that diesel generators have arrived at its operations in South Africa, and that their commissioning will be finalised by the end of April. The company points out that, during the third quarter of the current financial year, its operations have lost 6% of total operating hours available owing to electricity supply cuts and infrastructure related issues, lower than the time lost in the previous calendar year of more than 20%.

Independent commodity research group CPM Group managing partner Jeffrey Christian has dispelled some of the common myths in the platinum market, which can lead to bad investment decisions on the part of producers, investors, governments and other financing sources. “There are high costs to making financial decisions based on a desired future rather than a realistically probable future based on an erroneous understanding of present market conditions and probable outcomes,” he explains in a market alert issued on April 19.

With the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) currently scheduled to be operationalised in July and efforts under way to ensure that the Electricity Regulation Act (ERA) Amendment Bill is passed by the current Parliament, work is now advancing on the market code for the future multimarket architecture that will progressively replace the vertically integrated structure that has prevailed for over a century. Eskom transmission MD  Segomoco Scheppers will lead the NTCSA once it begins trade after addressing the remaining Companies Act requirements, having already met the key conditions of board independence, licensing and lender consent.

The mining industry makes a significant difference in the lives and livelihoods of employees and society in South Africa through economic and socioeconomic contributions, but more can be done on the governmental administrative front to enable increased benefits, says Minerals Council South Africa chief economist Hugo Pienaar. He told Mining Weekly that the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy had expressed commitment to reducing red tape and processing applications, such as mineral right exploration applications quicker.

Khomotso Mosehla, a long-standing nonexecutive director of MC Mining, has resigned as a director of the company, effective April 19. He has been a member of MC Mining's board of directors since late 2010 and contributed to the company being positioned to become South Africa's pre-eminent steelmaking hard coking coal producer, the company says.

With ASX- and TSX-listed Perseus Mining now holding a relevant interest of 94.99% of ASX-listed OreCorp’s shares, the company is moving to a compulsory acquisition of the remaining shares it does not own. Perseus’ offer is closing on April 19, affording remaining shareholders the opportunity to sell their shares at Perseus’ offer price of A$0.575 apiece.