Strike-hit platinum major Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) has declared force majeure on a long list of suppliers to its Rustenburg operations.

Mining Weekly can today disclose that Anglo Platinum Management Services has sent out letters to suppliers announcing the circumstances that prevent the company from fulfilling its contracts – but has silenced them with confidentiality clauses.

A company spokesperson said that many contractors had been given notice of the force majeure.

“It’s a big list,” Amplats manager Johann Dippenaar told Mining Weekly last week but he queried how Mining Weekly had come to be in possession of one of the letters.

“You should not have received it and I am just concerned how this got to you and I am very concerned that it landed on your desk,” Dippenaar said, adding that the letters were company specific and that the force majeure was contract specific.

“You will understand the sensitivity of this,” he said, adding that they had been emailed directly to the contracting parties, indicating that the contracts contained confidentially clauses.

He then referred Mining Weekly to Amplats’ communications department.

Late last month, Amplats CEO Chris Griffith said that, with a third of the year’s production dissipated as a result of the strike, Amplats Rustenburg operations would not make a profit.

He did not say anything about Amplats as a whole, however, which some believe still has profit in it, particularly in view of its potential to quietly boost production at the ultrarich, labour-light Mogalakwena mine.

Griffith hinted strongly at a closure of more Rustenburg shafts when he spoke to the media a day after the striking Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) had stood firm on its entry-level wage demands of R12 500 a month and said it was prepared, if need be, to continue striking for the next six months at Amplats, Impala Platinum and Lonmin mines.

Observers point out, however, that Amplats’ multicredit opencast Mogalakwena wonder on the northern limb of the Bushveld Complex and stockpiled material have the ability to keep Amplats well in the black over this troubled strike period, with striking workers and the staff of contractors under the force majeure ending up as the real losers.

They say further that Amplats may be looking to use the strike to wrap up the Rustenburg mines, which have for long been a source of profit concern.

The fully mechanised, high-margin Mogala-kwena, which has a life-of-mine extending well beyond 2060, on the other hand, is an efficient operation where the foot can be put on the production accelerator to get Amplats out of trouble.

It also benefits from nickel credits and is in such a prospective area that the Toronto-listed Ivanhoe is gearing up to go all out with a new mine nearby, despite South Africa’s platinum problems.

Amplats media and external relations manager Mpumi Sithole told Mining Weeky that she would come back to us on the force majeure but doubted that it would have been imposed without an announcement.

The wording of the force majeure letter stated further, however, that Amplats was unable to advise on to the extent and duration of the interruption but that it was the company’s objective to safely resume full operations as soon as possible.

Griffith told the media that the ultimate solution for the mining industry had to be more mechanised productive work, rather than the current strike-prone, labour-intensive paradigm.

Amplats closed two of its Rustenburg mines after its long review process, which saw 7 500 jobs lost.

Its solution for Rustenburg was only borderline from a profit point of view, however, and Griffith made it clear that shutting Rustenburg was a possibility.

The closure conversation is said to be red hot internally, with some hands being wrung because AMCU is potentially bringing about what Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu stopped during her outcry over the initial outcomes of the controversial Amplats review.

If closure eventuates, the job losses will be enormous and AMCU could well be seen as the pied piper of doom.

On the other hand, economists point to the upward pressure Amplats’ Rustenburg closure would have on the platinum price, but warn that the rand may take a knock along with economic growth prospects.

Thomson Reuters GFMS estimates that a total 800 000 oz of platinum production is already down the drain as a result of the strike.