JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified mining company Anglo American, which is in the process of restructuring itself, on Thursday delivered $5-billion underlying half-year earnings for the six months to the end of June.

"I’m very encouraged by a strong operational performance that delivered steady volumes and a 4% improvement in unit costs, while still facing weak cyclical markets for platinum group metals and diamonds,” Anglo American CE Duncan Wanblad stated.

The Johannesburg- and London-listed centenarian company reported that it is on track to reduce annual costs by $1.7-billion and reduce capital spend by $1.6-billion over the 2024 to 2026 period.

“We are moving at pace to create a much more agile and structurally profitable mining company,” Wanblad added in a media conference covered by Mining Weekly.

The new Anglo will be focused on its copper and iron-ore businesses, while maintaining its growth optionality in crop nutrients.

It reiterated its committed to completing the key elements of this transformation, which involves the demerging of Anglo American Platinum and De Beers by the end of 2025.

It reiterated its target of creating a simpler, higher valued mining company with extensive growth options and considerable strategic flexibility.

The operational focus delivered half-year margins in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) of 53% in copper and 43% in iron-ore.

The $5-billion half-year earnings had a collective Ebitda margin of 33%.

South Africa’s Kumba Iron Ore in the Northern Cape was described as continuing to perform strongly while collaborating with State logistics enterprise Transnet on rail reliability, while iron-ore subsidiary Minas-Rio in Brazil achieved its strongest first-half production for several years.

The steelmaking coal business in Australia has also improved its production and cost performance, though the incident at Grosvenor will set production back, Anglo cautioned.

The process of divesting the steelmaking coal business is continuing with Anglo reporting strong interest from a large number of potential new owners.

The 4% improved unit costs improved were described as reflecting weaker currencies, operational improvements and effective cost control.

The development of the Woodsmith crop nutrient project has been slowed down and a joint venture partnership sought.

SOUTH AFRICAN RENEWABLES

In addition to its 2030 operational emissions reduction target, Anglo is targeting carbon neutrality across its operations and a halving of Scope 3 emissions by 2040.

Anglo said that it had managed to reduce Scope 1 and 2 and greenhouse-gas emissions in the six months to below what they were in the prior period.

In South Africa, its jointly owned renewable-energy venture with EDF Renewables – Envusa Energy – has completed the project financing for the first three wind and solar projects.

These three renewable energy projects, known as the Koruson 2 cluster and located on the border of the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape, are designed to have a total capacity of 520 MW of wind and solar electricity generation.

Managed operations in South America are already supplied with 100% renewable electricity and the managed operations in Australia are scheduled to move to renewables supply from 2025.

At this stage, 60% of the global grid supply for the current Anglo portfolio would be drawn from renewable sources.