South African trade union Solidarity on Monday announced it is about to launch a campaign to save workers’ jobs at the South African gold-mining operations of both world number-six gold miner Gold Fields and world number-four gold miner Harmony. In October this year, Harmony announced it was making a bid for Gold Fields.

World number-six gold miner Harmony on Thursday announced details of its proposed cost-saving measures, which it said will deliver at least R1-billion a year in improved pre-tax operating profit at Gold Fields’ South African operations. Harmony will do this through applying the "Harmony way".

Subject to regulatory approvals, South African oil and chemicals group Sasol and Malaysian state oil company Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) are set to form South Africa’s largest liquid fuels business, following the signing of a joint venture
agreement between the two parties.

South Africa’s Old Mutual Asset Managers (Omam) is still weighing its options regarding the bid by Harmony Gold for Gold Fields, Omam resources fund manager Patrice Rassou said on Friday. A key issue for Omam is that the fund manager feels that not all the information has been forthcoming from Gold Fields and Harmony.

Global resources group BHP Billiton expects the demand for commodities in China to be sustainable over the long-term, BHP Billiton CEO Chip Goodyear said on Friday at the group’s annual general meeting. BHP Billiton chairperson Don Argus said the performance of the global economy is near three-decade highs.

Steel producer Ispat Iscor on Thursday reported a 15% increase in operating profit for the September quarter to R2,235-billion, up from R1,945-billion in the June quarter. September headline earnings were R1,575-billion, up R882-million from the June quarter.