Lonmin PLC said in its 2016 fourth quarter update that it produced 2.3 million tonnes of platinum in its Marikana and Pandora mines in South Africa.
The company is Lonmin Plc is one of the world’s largest primary Platinum producers with massive mining operations in Southern Africa.
Lonmin said the figure represent decrease of 7.8% or 0.2 million tonnes on the comparative period partly due to the planned decline from the closing of our high cost shafts.
While the first quarter of our financial year is historically our lowest producing quarter, the mining performance was disappointing with production at our Generation 2 shafts down 5.2% from the prior year period.
Lonmin said it is implementing initiatives to improve productivity is taking longer than we planned, particularly in respect to improving absenteeism
It stressed in the update that “we remain committed to delivering sustained productivity improvements at our operations to ensure the long-term
viability of the business”.
The company said platinum sales for the quarter were 134,954 ounces, 10.3% lower than the prior year period sales of 150,420 ounces as a result of the lower mined tonnes. PGM sales were 289,962 ounces, marginally down (0.2%) on the prior year period sales of 290,475; there was a release of built up stocks of Ruthenium, as a
result of a change in the Ruthenium refining process. I
In addition, converse to Q1 2016, the Palladium to other metal sales ratio was brought in line with the normal production ratio which cushioned the impact of the decrease on PGM sales down.
