Anglo American Platinum has more than doubled its earnings for the first half of the financial year. Higher prices for precious metals and a weaker rand have improved operating conditions for local miners.
Amplats’ interim headline earnings rose 120% from a year earlier, supported by a gain of R1 billion in stock.
The price of platinum has risen 7.1% in 2019 to set the metal up for its biggest gain in 7 years.
Company CEO, Chris Griffiths says the strong earnings will not automatically translate into bigger wage increases.
“When prices go up they can come down, what we really want to be careful about is embedding unsustainable wage increases into the base of the business. If you think of a mine like Amandabult where the majority of AMCU members are that mine has got 15 000 people but 60% of all cost of the mine is labour and contractors. So you want to make sure you don’t embed unsustainable cost increases into the base. So we are going to have tough conversations, but what we have to do is use the cast to sustain the long term viability of the company,” says Griffiths.
