Mining group Kumba Resources has agreed to limit its retrenchments to 100 people from the 400 people that it previously planned to retrench, a Solidarity spokesperson said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Harmony Gold has started retrenching National Union of Mineworkers members at five of its operations in the Free State.
Shares in global resources group BHP Billiton on Wednesday afternoon fell to a six-week low after the group announced that it has given in to Chinese steel makers demands that it settle at 71,5% for its iron-ore contract price increase, the same level at which its two major iron-ore mining competitors have settled, analysts said.
Officials from South African oil and chemicals group Sasol and representatives from three major trade unions on Monday agreed to the establishment of an occupational health and safety charter. "The parties agreed that safety is the first priority at all Sasol operations," Sasol said in a statement.
South Africa’s Highveld Steel and Vanadium (Hiveld, HVL) on Friday soared to an all-time high of R63,50 per share on the JSE Securities Exchange SA due to the shortage in vanadium metal, which has seen the price of the commodity rocket. At 1.25pm, Hiveld was quoted at R62,50 per share, up 7,8% or R4,50 from its previous close of R58.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was higher on Thursday on solid buying interest as a result of the weak rand, which boosted the resources sector and the financial stocks, brokers said. The top performer for the day was oil and chemicals group Sasol, which hit an all-time high, and was the top-traded stock by value.
Three gold mines operated by world number two gold-miner AngloGold Ashanti face the prospect of flooding, if rival DRDGold doesn’t pick up the tab for the pumping of underground water from its Hartebeesfontein and Buffelfontein gold mines, which are currently shut down and in the process of being liquidated.
About 21 000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in the Free State have suspended their strike at Harmony Gold’s Free State operations and will return to work for the evening shift, ending a two-week strike, the NUM said on Wednesday. An agreement was reached between the union and the company on Wednesday afternoon.
The two-week strike by 21 000 National Union of Mineworkers members at most of Harmony Gold’s Free State mines will add to the group’s losses for the current June quarter, analysts said on Wednesday. Harmony has already reported six consecutive quarterly losses.
World number six gold miner Harmony Gold on Tuesday fell to its lowest level since September 2001 because of the continued strike at most of the group’s Free State gold mines and the group’s continued quarterly losses. By 11.15am, Harmony’s stock on the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa was quoted at R47,20, down 30c or 0,6% from its previous close.
South African banking group Absa is hoping to almost quadruple the size of its NewGold exchange traded fund from its current take-up value of just more than R240-million to R1-billion by the end of 2005, Absa Corporate and Merchant Bank’s Dr Vladimir Nedeljkovic has said in an interview.