Sibanye-Stillwater's earnings will shrink due to a decline in the price of platinum group metals and a decline in U.S. production.
Platinum group metals (PGMs) and gold miner Sibanye-Stillwater anticipates that its headline earnings for the first half of the year will decline by up to 53% compared to the same period in the previous year.
It said its headline profits per share are projected to be between 1.98 rand ($0.11) and 2.18 rand ($0.12) in the first half of 2023, compared to 4.23 rand ($0.27) in the first half of 2022.
Sibanye-Stillwater attributed the drop in earnings to a steep drop in PGM pricing, which fell 22% in the average rand 4E PGMs basket price and 28% in the average US dollar 2E basket price year-on-year.
The production of 4E PGMs from South African operations, including the purchase of concentrate, remained unchanged at 848 723 oz compared to 849 152 oz in the previous period.
Sibanye-US Stillwater's PGM operations faced a decline in production and a surge in unit costs as a result of the shaft infrastructure incident at the West mine in Montana.
Maintenance carried out in March on the winder, which operates the vertical shaft leading to the lower levels of the mine, resulted in significant damage to the infrastructure.
As a result, Stillwater West's mined 2E PGMs production decreased from 230 039 oz in the first half of 2022 to 205 513 oz in the first half of 2023.
Meanwhile, the gold operations operated in South Africa, excluding DRDGold, grew output by 23% to 10,411 kilogrammes (334 721 oz).
In addition, the business profited from a 22% increase in the average rand gold price during the period under review.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished