Diversified mining group Anglo American delivered underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) for the half year of $5 billion compared to $5.1 billion, a year earlier.
The company said that lower iron ore prices and sales, along with the effects of the cyclone at Manganese, affected their financial results. However, these effects were mostly balanced out by higher copper prices, normalisation of price-driven purchased concentrate (POC) at platinum group metals (PGMs), and good progress in their cost-out programmes.
The reductions in cost and normalisation of POC improved Anglo’s underlying EBITDA margin to 33% from the previous year’s 31%.
Meanwhile, company chief executive Duncan Wanblad said Anglo’s net debt increased marginally to $11.1 billion, which shows tight discipline to optimise capital allocation and free cash flow.
“Our decision to temporarily slow down the Woodsmith crop nutrients project and thereby push out its production timing has resulted in a $1.6 billion impairment of the project,” he said.
“As we progress our portfolio transformation, we expect to substantially reduce our overhead and other non-operational costs in phases, but weighted towards the end of the process to minimise business risk.”
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
