Anglo American 1st Half Profit Reflects Stronger Production, Commodity Prices -- Commodity Comment

By Jaime Llinares Taboada

Anglo American PLC on Thursday reported that its profit increased in the first half driven by higher production and commodity prices. Here's what the FTSE 100 mining company had to say:

On production:

"Improved operational performances at PGMs, De Beers, Kumba (Iron Ore) and Copper contributed to a 10% production increase on a copper equivalent basis, driven in part by the easing of Covid-19 related restrictions that impacted production in the first half of 2020, as well as higher throughput at Mogalakwena (PGMs) and strong plant performance at Los Bronces (Copper), Collahuasi (Copper) and Kumba."

On prices:

"The Group Mining Ebitda margin was higher than for the first half of 2020 at 61% (30 June 2020: 38%), due to the increase in the price for the Group's basket of products and improved production at PGMs, Kumba (Iron Ore) and Copper, partly offset by unfavourable exchange rates and higher input costs across the Group"

"Average market prices for the Group's basket of products increased by 62% compared to the first half of 2020, increasing underlying Ebitda by $7.9 billion."

"Higher realised prices were achieved across most of our products, with iron ore increasing by 133%; the dollar PGMs basket increasing by 47%, driven mainly by a significantly stronger average rhodium price; and copper increasing by 84%."

On Covid-19 volume recovery:

"The positive $0.8 billion effect on the Group's underlying Ebitda reflects the easing of the Covid-19 related restrictions that impacted sales in the first half of 2020, as well as a recovering diamond market."

"This was partly offset, however, by continued disruption to production and the supply chain in the first six months of 2021."

On costs:

"The net effect of cost and volume was a $0.5 billion increase in underlying Ebitda, as strong PGM sales and the impact of PGMs' ACP outage in 2020 more than offset the effect of logistics constraints at Kumba and unplanned maintenance at Minas-Rio."

Write to Jaime Llinares Taboada at [e-mail]; @JaimeLlinaresT

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 29, 2021 03:29 ET (07:29 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.