South Africa's biggest gold-miner AngloGold Ashanti reiterated on Tuesday that it was confident of moving towards full production capacity at its local operations and said that it would "claw back" a large slice of the gold ounces it had expected to lose because of the national power crisis.

It was currently operating at 96,5% of its previous electricity use, and was targeting a 4,5% power reduction this year, CEO Mark Cutifani said.

The company managed to exceed its production guidance for the quarter ended March 31 by 9%, producing 1,2-million ounces of the yellow metal.

During the quarter, the South African power situation was "the most urgent issue" threatening AngloGold's production targets, Cutifani said.

The miner reported earlier this year that it anticipated the South African power crisis to cost it 400 000 oz in total. It shed one-half of this in the first three months of the year, forecasting that another 200 000 oz would be lost over the next nine months.

However, Cutifani lauded AngloGold Ashanti's South African team for its handling of the situation, which mitigated the impact on the company's production.

"We did not react drastically to the detriment of our operations," he stated. "Nor did we cut employees or accept that we had to operate at a lower production base."

Rather, Cutifani said that the company had "worked around the clock" to adapt its operating plans to a 90% power constraint "based on the likely scenarios going forward".

‘PUSHED RIGHT BUTTONS'

He went on to say that AngloGold had "pushed the right buttons navigating through the crisis".

The gold major needed only the 96,5% current power usage to run its operations at full capacity levels. "We have achieved that objective," Cutifani asserted.

Electricity use trimming initiatives that the company had embarked on included rotating rock hoisting between one operation in each of geographical areas it has mines in.

Cutifani also said that AngloGold was the only big gold producer in South Africa that had generators at all of its local mines.

Another initiative was reducing its mills to manage load, stockpiling material that it would process "well into the second quarter".

ELECTRIC ROCK DRILLS

However, the electricity saving effort that Cutifani gave the most attention to during the presentation of AngloGold's first quarter results was the roll out of electric rock drills at its deep South African mines.

This offered significant power savings, and the company had already replaced all pneumatic rock drills at its TauTona mine, near Carletonville.

The electric drills also required less physical effort from workers, which improved productivity and enhanced safety, which Cutifani cited as an example of how "safety and productivity go hand in hand".

Another big saver would be AngloGold's plans to replace the dewatering pump system at the Moab Khutsong mine, near TauTona, with a more efficient system.

This would cut 3,5 MW of power use.

‘CLAW BACK'

He expressed confidence in AngloGold emerging from the power crisis relatively unscathed.

"Based on a higher power allocation of 96,5%, and together with our initiatives, we are confident of moving towards full production capacity, and we will claw back a significant proportion of the 200 000 oz we anticipated to lose from between April and December," stated Cutifani.

The company had previously set a target of cutting its power consumption by 15% over the next five years, but he said that AngloGold was looking to bring this forward to "at least two years".

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