JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Platinum junior Anooraq has completed a labour restructuring process at its Bokoni mine on the eastern limb of South Africa's Bushveld Complex, which affected 840 on-mine personnel.

The company had retrenched 153 employees and 374 workers were transferred from positions in services to production activities, Anooraq reported on Monday.

It had started the labour restructuring process in the fourth quarter of 2009, and had finalised agreements with trade unions in December.

In January, Anooraq dismissed 103 employees from the operations due to an unprotected strike and six production shifts were lost during the industrial action.

"The labour restructuring at Bokoni was a key component of the turnaround strategy, which we identified when assuming operational control of the mine in July 2009. We now have the right people in the right jobs, ready to maximise efficiencies both from a production and cost perspective," commented CEO Philip Kotze.

He added that the benefits of the restructuring should start to bear fruit at the operations during the second quarter of 2010.

The company's production growth strategy at Bokoni, which started with effect from April, would see the introduction of additional stoping teams at the operations, as well as additional production efficiency measures being implemented to improve current production volumes.

Anooraq plans to increase its number of stoping teams at Bokoni by 40% from its current base of 70 teams, to some 100 stoping teams in service by year-end.

At the end of March, Anooraq reported that Bokoni had achieved a fourth-quarter operating profit of C$2,1-million.

Anooraq bought an effective 51% holding in the Bokoni platinum mine last year from Anglo Platinum.

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