Staff Reporter

WINDHOEK – The full-year price per platinum ounce for the basket of metals sold increased by 27% to US$2,819/ounce compared to 2018 due to 48% and 73% price increases in palladium and rhodium, respectively. Anglo American revealed these figures last week.
Platinum sales volumes decreased by 14% to 668,300 ounces and palladium sales volumes decreased by 4% to 435 800 ounces due to lower refined production in the period. The report also stated that refined platinum production decreased by 18% to 629,700 ounces and refined palladium production decreased by 20% to 396 600 ounces. Excluding the impact of the tolled volumes that were previously purchased as concentrate, refined platinum production was flat and palladium decreased by 6% as improved operational performance at the processing facilities was offset by the impact of Eskom power outages. These power outages in Q4 resulted in an inventory build-up of circa 45,000 platinum ounces and circa 27,000 palladium ounces.
The report also provided some production guidance for the year that (metal in concentrate) is unchanged at 2.0-2.2 million ounces of platinum and approximately 1.4 million ounces of palladium, subject to Eskom power performance.
Looking at copper, production decreased by 13% to 158,800 tonnes, largely impacted by a reduction at Los Bronces, driven by the continued drought conditions in central Chile, partially offset by continued strong plant performance at Collahuasi. “Production from Los Bronces decreased by 28%, to 71,700 tonnes with a 44% reduction in plant throughput (7 million tonnes vs 13 million tonnes) resulting from lower water availability. This was partly offset by strong mine performance, in particular, a step-up in shovel productivity as a result of P101 improvements, and planned higher grades (0.99% vs. 0.81%).”