You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here. ADVERTISEMENT CONTINUE READING BELOW Download the free LiSTN audio app on Google Play, Apple or here.RYK VAN NIEKERK: Anglo American Platinum is the largest single producer of platinum group metals in the world. It has five mines in the Bushveld Complex in South Africa and another one in Zimbabwe. Anglo American owns around 80% of the company.
CRAIG MILLER: As we announced today – really as a measure of last resort – we do need to restructure the company and therefore we’ve entered into the process of having consultations and engagements under Section 189 of the Labour Relations Act to really effect the reduction in people, in structures. That’s really in response to the decline in PGM prices and also the near-term outlook for PGMs – particularly what’s going on from a global macroeconomic environment.
CRAIG MILLER: Certainly the measures that we outlined today are very significant. I don’t underestimate the impact that they have on so many of my colleagues, their families and the communities where they live. RYK VAN NIEKERK: But it must be one of the most aggressive cuts Anglo American Platinum has undertaken in recent years.
RYK VAN NIEKERK: You’ve referred to the significant drop in the platinum group metal prices. I think the number that was used was around 35%, which the industry had to absorb last year. But how much of the decline in your profitability stems from the drop in prices, and perhaps how much stems from structural problems in South Africa like electricity supply and logistics?
RYK VAN NIEKERK: Now 2024 is an election year and of course the ruling party is really trying to build a campaign based on job creation, so this is not good news for them. I’m sure you’ll have a few urgent requests for meetings. What would your response be in those meetings to justify these retrenchments?
Certainly we are protecting the business. We’re protecting, as I said, the 18 000 jobs that will remain with the business post the implementation of this restructuring, and importantly contribute to the South African economy in the long term. You do have the continued penetration of battery-electric vehicles into the automotive sector. Battery-electric vehicles don’t have any PGMs in them today, and so that’s weighing on demand. And actually we are forecasting that palladium, which is in a supply deficit this year, will move into a supply surplus in 2025, and that is weighing on its price.