The first-quarter production of Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) declined 8% as heavy rains in February caused widespread flooding that affected Tumela mine at Amandelbult.
The group said production at own-managed mines for the quarter to end-March was 462,000oz compared with 504,300oz a year ago.
CEO Craig Miller said progress has been made to recover from the Amandelbult flooding event, with Dishaba mine, Tumela Upper and surface operations back in production.
“The team has worked tirelessly to complete the pumping and dewatering activities at Tumela Lower while also stabilising the rest of the mine,” he said.
“We anticipate production at Tumela Lower to commence around midyear and we expect to remain within our production and cost guidance.”
Miller said as part of the work towards the demerger from Anglo American, Amplats had applied for a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) to make it easier for many of Anglo American’s existing UK-based shareholders to continue to hold shares in the company after the demerger.
The company’s primary listing will remain on the JSE with a proposed name of Valterra Platinum.
It expects to start trading on the LSE on June 2.
Amplats has told investors that its imminent demerger from the Anglo group is likely to incur “significant” one-off set-up costs to operate independently.
In its annual report published last month, the company said among risks associated with its break-up from Anglo American is some or all of the anticipated benefits of the demerger may not be realised.
It also said that the stand-alone outfit “will not be able to rely on certain existing sources to fund its future capital requirements and financing from new sources may be available on less favourable terms”.
Despite the costs associated with the break-up, Amplats executives believe a stand-alone entity will thrive.
Miller on Thursday said he was “excited” about what the future holds for the company.
“Though our name and visual identity may be changing, there are certain critical components of our DNA that will endure: we are a leading PGM producer, responsibly and safely extracting precious metals and associated by-products from our exceptional mineral resource endowment,” Miller said.
“We have the team, capabilities and scale to drive operational and functional excellence with plans to optimise the performance of our assets in line with our portfolio strategy, including the objective of keeping all of our assets in the first half of the cost curve.”
Update: April 24 2025
This story has been updated with additional information.
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