WHILE mining company South32 performed strongly in its December quarter, it warned that the Covid19 pandemic continued to impact its operations.
Its share price yesterday closed 4.81 percent down at R43.30.
Listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, with secondary listings on the Johannesburg and London Stock Exchanges, the firm said yesterday that it had seen an increase in case of numbers and workforce restrictions in many of the jurisdictions in which it operated, impacting labour availability. It also said labour shortages and freight bottlenecks would impact global operations in 2022.
Port congestion and tight global freight conditions continued to impact South32's supply chains, slowing the movement of inventory, most notably for its aluminium smelters in Southern Africa.
Graham Kerr, South32 chief executive said: “We achieved a number of strong production results across our portfolio and realised significantly higher commodity prices in the December 2021 half-year, lifting operating margins across the group.
“We delivered higher base metals production, and our integrated aluminium supply chain benefited from additional alumina volumes and record aluminium prices.
“We took further steps to reshape our portfolio for a low carbon future, increasing our exposure to critical metals with our planned acquisition of a 45 percent interest in the Sierra Gorda copper mine in Chile and further investment in green aluminium,” he said. Kerr said South32 expected to grow its total share of aluminium production by 24 percent to 1.2 million tons in 2023, through its proposed acquisition of an additional interest in the hydro-powered Mozal Aluminium smelter and the restart of the Brazil Aluminium smelter using 100 percent renewable power.
The mining company said it achieved a 4 percent uplift in quarterly alumina production with Worsley Alumina continuing to operate above nameplate capacity, and record production at Brazil Alumina as it returned to normalised rates following the prior quarter's bauxite unloader outage.
Alumina production for the second quarter ended December was up by 4 percent on the previous quarter, to 1.3 million tons, bringing half-year production to 2.6 million tons, down 4 percent on the previous half, the company said.
Manganese production for the quarter was down 17 percent on the September quarter, to 1.2 million tons, and down 2 percent in the half-year to 2.8 million tons.
Meanwhile, Australian manganese saleable production decreased by 7 percent to 1.7 million tons in the December half-year with a lower yield at the primary concentrator, while the PC02 circuit continued to deliver production above nameplate capacity.
“South Africa manganese saleable production increased by 7 percent to 1.1 million tons in the same period last year, as planned maintenance completed in the December quarter was more than offset by higher volumes of premium material from the Mamatwan mine as it optimised its product mix,” South32 said.
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