Anglo American Quarterly Copper Output Jumped; Coal and Diamond Fell Sharply -- Commodity Comment

By Christian Moess Laursen

Anglo American reported a 4% rise in overall production in the third quarter, including a 42% jump in copper production. The increase also reflected a step-up from its steelmaking coal operations and operational improvements in the platinum group metals business. Here's what the diversified mining company had to say:

On copper:

"Copper production increased by 42%, reflecting the progressive increase in production from Quellaveco in Peru, while production from our operations in Chile decreased by 4%."

"Copper production from Chile decreased due to ongoing ore hardness and an electrical substation fire at Los Bronces, resulting in a minor revision to guidance for our Chile operations."

"Production from Los Bronces decreased by 20% to 45,800 [metric] tons, primarily driven by lower grades (0.49% vs. 0.58%) and throughput, due to a combination of continued higher ore hardness and an electrical substation fire that interrupted plant facilities' power supply for 16 days."

"At Collahuasi [mine in Chile], attributable production increased by 9% to 66,100 tons, driven by planned higher grades (1.19% vs. 1.08%) as well as higher throughput following the plant maintenance in 2Q 2023."

"Production from El Soldado [mine in Chile] increased by 5% to 9,700 tons, reflecting the benefit of mining in a higher grade area."

On platinum group metals:

"Production from our platinum group metals operations was broadly flat despite planned mining in a lower grade area at Mogalakwena [mine in South Africa]."

"Own mined production decreased by 3% to 665,800 ounces, due to lower production from Mogalakwena and Amandelbult [mines in South Africa]."

"Production at Mogalakwena decreased by 5% to 246,800 ounces, primarily due to mining in a planned lower grade area. Production at Amandelbult decreased by 4% to 184,900 ounces, due to continued poor ground conditions. These were partly offset by joint operations which increased production by 2% to 97,500 ounces, mainly due to improved grade at Modikwa [mine in South Africa]."

On diamonds:

"Rough diamond production decreased by 23% to 7.4 million carats, primarily due to the planned reduction in South Africa as Venetia transitions to underground operations and begins the ramp-up of production, as well as planned maintenance in Botswana."

On iron ore:

"Iron ore production decreased by 4% to 15.4 million tons, primarily due to a 7% decrease at Minas-Rio [mine in brazil], driven by planned plant maintenance and a 2% decrease at Kumba [mine in South Africa].

On nickel:

"Nickel production decreased by 7%, mainly reflecting the impact of lower grades."

"Nickel production decreased by 7% to 9,300 tons, reflecting the impact of lower grades and planned maintenance at Barro Alto [mine in Brazil], despite operational improvements at Codemin [mine in Brazil]."

On steelmaking coal:

"Steelmaking coal production decreased by 21%, reflecting challenging strata conditions at Moranbah and the ramp-up of Grosvenor [mines in Australia] during July following the longwall move in 2Q."

On manganese:

"Manganese ore production increased by 4% to 1,012,100 tons, driven by improved mining performance and equipment reliability at the South African operations."

On guidance:

"[Copper] production guidance for 2023 is revised to 830,000-870,000 tons (previously 840,000-930,000 tons)."

"Chile's guidance is revised to c.520,000 tons (previously 530,000-580,000 tons) due to unfavorable ore characteristics and an electrical substation fire at Los Bronces, as well as the impact of a geotechnical fault line on El Soldado's production; Peru unchanged at 310,000-350,000 tons."

Write to Christian Moess Laursen at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 24, 2023 03:35 ET (07:35 GMT)

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