Harmony Gold, which has operations in South Africa and Papua New Guinea, on Monday said gold production for the quarter ended March 2013 would be about 15 percent lesser than the previous quarter.

The JSE-listed gold miner attributed the slip in gold production to the brief closure of Kusasalethu mine due to safety and security reasons in December last year.

Harmony took a tougher and costly choice to close the mine after a violent, unprotected strike before opening the mine at the end of February this year.

It said the gold production has also been negatively impacted by the ventilation challenge at Phakisa mine and a sluggish start-up at other operations after the Christmas season.

But the company said more than half of the employees at Kusasalethu mine had resumed work at the mine. The mine is likely to return to normal production rates after June this year.

Kusasalethu’s and Phakisa’s performance may, however, further negatively impact Harmony’s June 2013 production quarter.

Harmony was incorporated 62 year ago and is one of the largest gold mining companies in the world and the third largest gold producer in South Africa.

It has a reported production of 1.17 million ounces of gold for the financial year 2012 and mineral reserves of 52.9 million ounces.

The firm’s shares are also quoted in the form of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) on the New York Stock Exchange and as International Depositary Receipts (IDRs) on the Berlin and Brussels exchanges.

Harmony operates mines in South African and Papua New Guinea. In South Africa, the company has ten underground mines and one open-pit mine and several surface operations in South Africa.

In Papua New Guinea, Harmony has a 50 percent interest in the Morobe Mining Joint Ventures, which include Hidden Valley, an open-pit gold and silver mine, the Wafi -Golpu project and extensive mining tenements.

Harmony’s own mining portfolio looks principally on highly- prospective zones in Papua New Guinea.