The world’s largest primary producer of platinum, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), said on Monday that it expects at least a 20 percent fall in 2014 full-year earnings because of the five-month strike that hit its South African operation.
Based in South Africa,Amplats wages dispute with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, which ended in June, caused a production loss of 424,000 ounces a further 108,000 ounces during the subsequent post-strike ramp-up. The company has also had to contend with spot platinum prices down about 12 percent this year and hovering around five-year lows. It said in a statement that headline earnings per share would fall by at least 20 percent from last year’s 5.56 rand per share.
Amplats also disclosed it has benefited from the final phase of a refinancing transaction with Toronto-listed Atlatsa Resources and from the closure of a section of Amplats’ Union mine.
Amplats said this year that it would sell the mine and other labour-intensive shafts around Rustenburg, the epicentre of the strike, as it switches to more mechanised methods of mining.
