The South African mining sector seems to be going through a particularly rough patch at the moment and this will also have a strongly negative effect on the country’s economy given the importance of metals and minerals in the country’s exports. According the latest Statistics South Africa preliminary data for July, the country’s overall mining production decreased by 7.7% year-on-year.
Not surprisingly, given that the month covered the tail end of the country’s debilitating platinum mining strike, platinum group metals output was down a huge 45.2% year on year. PGMs had been one of the country’s most significant metal exports of late having comfortably overtaken gold – which, somewhat surprisingly, also saw a 14.6% year on year reduction in output. Diamond production was down 10% and copper 15.9%
Top places for South African mineral sales values in July were held by coal at R8.13 billion (US$739 million) and iron ore R5.16 billion (US$469 million) despite the fall in global prices for these bulk metals and minerals. Even with the strike impact, PGMs followed close behind at R5.1 billion ($464 million) with gold nowadays only at R3.69 billion ($335 million).
This post was published at Mineweb
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