Mark Cutifani, chief executive of Anglo American, a diversified mining company, said that in the face of the global new crown pneumonia epidemic, many of the company’s businesses in different countries have been affected, and some commodities have been affected. Bigger than other commodities.
"During different levels of lockdowns in different jurisdictions, our comprehensive response supported the continuity of most of our business, although in many cases there was a decline in capacity."
"Our continued strong performance in Brazil's Minas-Rio iron mine and Chile's Collahuasi copper mine helped us reduce the output decline to 18%. At the same time, we also solved the operational problems of metallurgical coal and platinum group metals (PGM)."
As of June 30, blockades implemented across South Africa have affected Anglo American’s diamond, PGMs, iron ore and thermal coal businesses.
Due to the maintenance and upgrade of Anglo American's converter plant in Rustenburg, refining output declined, and PGM operations were also affected.
The most affected commodity this quarter was Anglo American’s diamond business. De Beers' production fell 54% year-on-year to only 3.5 million carats.
The production of PGMs fell by 41% year-on-year.
Anglo American’s thermal coal output in the second quarter was 4.4 million tons, down 34% year-on-year, and metallurgical coal output was 4 million tons, down 32% year-on-year.
Australia's metallurgical coal production was affected by two underground accidents at the Moranbah and Grosvenor coal mines and the movement of the long walls of the Grosvenor and Grasstree coal mines.
At the same time, the iron ore output of the South African subsidiary Kumba Iron Mine fell by 20% year-on-year to 8.5 million tons.
However, the output of Minas Rio Tinto iron ore increased by 5% year-on-year to 5.9 million tons.
Anglo American's manganese mine output was 796,000 tons, down 4% year-on-year, and nickel output was 108,000 tons, up 10% year-on-year. Copper output was 167,000 tons, an increase of 5% year-on-year.
The group expects diamond production in 2020 to be between 25 million and 27 million carats, while annual copper production is expected to be between 620,000 and 670,000 tons.
The output of platinum is expected to be between 1.5 and 1.7 million ounces, and the output of palladium is expected to be between 1 and 1.2 million ounces.
Kumba iron ore production is estimated to be between 37 and 39 million tons, while Minas-Rio's estimate is between 22 and 24 million tons.
The guideline output of coking coal is between 16 million and 18 million tons, while the annual output of thermal coal is expected to reach 21 million tons.
Anglo American is also expected to produce 42,000 to 44,000 tons of nickel.
