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Diversified mining company Sibanye-Stillwater says 2020 was, after all, a good year for it, despite the production disruptions that local miners faced in the early part of the year during the hard lockdown.
The company, which owns mines in Rustenburg, Marikana as well JSE-listed gold producer, DRDGOLD, published its production update for the year ended 31 December 2020 on Wednesday afternoon.
The first half of its financial year, the results of which were published by the company in August, were already showing signs that Sibanye, thanks to its acquisition of Lonmin mines in 2019, would have a good 2020, while profits of many other JSE-listed companies buckled under Covid-19.
In Wednesday's update, Sibanye said production in the second half of 2020 was even better. The company will present its results on 18 February.
The Group operating performance for the year ended 31 December 2020 was extremely pleasing, wrote Sibanye. "This solid operational performance was achieved despite the ongoing implementation and observance of Covid-19 protocols," it added.
The company's platinum group metals production from SA mines was 40% higher in the second half compared to the first half of 2020. It exceeded the upper limit of Sibanye's targets for the whole 2020 by 9%.
But platinum production in its US operations was marginally its revised targets, primarily due to the impact of a spike in Covid-19 infections in that market in the last quarter of 2020, but the second half yield was still 3% higher than of the first half.
SA Gold operations, excluding DRDGOLD, produced 3% more output than the company's revised guidance given for 2020, thanks to a 48% jump in production in the second half compared to the first six months of the year.
Sibanye CEO, Neal Froneman, is hoping that 2021 will be another good year.
"The manner in which the initial threat of Covid-19 was handled at our operations in H1 2020 and the subsequent, safe return to normalised production levels by year-end was extremely pleasing…In the absence of unexpected disruptions, the Group is well positioned to deliver a much more consistent and significantly improved operating result for 2021" he said.
