Anglo’s Wanblad hints at more diamond production cuts

Further reductions in diamond output from De Beers could be on the cards as market conditions remain depressed despite the three million carat chop in production already announced for 2024.Indicating this in Anglo American Corporation’s production report for the September quarter CEO Duncan Wanblad commented, “the diamond market remains challenging as the midstream continues to hold higher than normal levels of inventory and the expectation remains for a protracted recovery.“As a result – and together with our partners – we will continue to assess the options to reduce production going forward.”In July, De Beers announced it was cutting its full year production guidance to between 23m and 26m carats from the previous estimate of 26m to 29m carats.The quarterly statistics show that diamond production was chopped by 25% to 5.6m carats in the September quarter (June quarter – 7.4m carats) while platinum group metals (pgm) production dropped 10% to 922,000oz (1,03m oz) and copper production fell 13% to 181,000t (209,000t).  Iron ore output rose 2% to 15.7mt (15.4mt).Botswana bore the brunt of the diamond production cutbacks with production dropping 32% to 4m carats as output from the Jwaneng mine was reduced. Namibian production dropped 14% to 0.5m carats with cutbacks at Debmarine but South African production rose 41% to 0.5m carats as the Venetia underground mine ramped up operations.Turning to the group restructuring currently underway Wanblad said he expected to complete the demerger of Anglo-American Platinum by “the middle of 2025” while a sale agreement over the group’s steelmaking coal division is expected to be executed “in the coming months”.Wanblad said the sale process for the coal assets was further supported by “recent imagery that shows that the fire damage in the underground area of the of the Grosvenor mine appears limited.”He added, “We are making excellent progress with our portfolio simplification to create an exciting and differentiated investment proposition focussed on our world-class copper, premium iron ore and crop nutrients assets – all future-enabling products.“This highly-cash generative and much higher margin portfolio will offer greater resilience through cycles with the benefit of significant high quality and well-sequenced growth options, including a clear path to increase annual copper production to more than one million tonnes by the early 2030’s.”Wanblad said copper production during the September quarter was hit mainly by the planned closure of the Los Bronces plant which was put on care and maintenance but overall guidance for 2024 remained unchanged at 730,000t to 790,000t.Production from Anglo American Platinum was hit by drops at the Mogalakwena and Amandelbult mines partially offset by higher production from the Unki mine in Zimbabwe.Wanblad said annual production guidance for metal in concentrate remained unchanged at 3.3m to 3.7m oz but refined production guidance had been increased to between 3.7m to 3.9m oz (previously 3.3m to 3.7m oz) because of no Eskom load-curtailments this year and good stability at the processing assets which enabled a release of built-up, work-in-progress inventory.The post Wanblad hints at more De Beers production cuts as the diamond market stays depressed appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.comWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com