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Thursday, August 27, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Jonathan Faurie.

Making headlines today:

State-owned power utility Eskom, which posted a record R9,7-billion loss in its 2009 financial year to end-March, spent R7-billion more on coal than in the previous year.

Chairperson Bobby Godsell commented that the South African coal industry sold Eskom a lot of coal last year at very high prices.

Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga said that Eskom had paid more, mainly as a result of its use of short-term contracts.

Eskom paid R25,4-billion for coal in 2009 compared with R18,3-billion in 2008. It bought 133-million tons, 13-million tons more than the 120-million tons of 2008 and burnt 121-million tons, a level likely to be repeated this year.

Australia's Oz Minerals posted a loss of A$580,7-million in the six months ended June 30, after it incurred a loss on the sale of assets, lower revenue and higher costs associated with its refinancing plan.

The company, which owns the Prominent Hill mine, reports that it had incurred a loss of A$553,9-million on the sale of assets, most of which China-based Minmetals acquired.

Oz Minerals sold its interests in the Century, Golden Grove, Rosebery and Sepon mines, the Avebury asset and certain other exploration projects to Minmetals for $1,39-billion, enabling it to repay its bank loans.

Separately, it had sold the Martabe gold/silver project in Indonesia to China Sci-Tech for $211-million.

By the end of June, the mining company had a cash balance of just over A$1-billion.

Also making headlines:

The national Union of Mineworkers warns that the Impala Platinum Rustenberg wage strike could spread to other Impala mines.
Impala Platinum's profit falls by 66% to R6-billion.
Harmony Gold buys two more exploration projects in Papua New Guinea.
And, a local contractor fires 3 900 workers after illegal strike at Aquarius Platinum.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit miningweekly.com.