A process was under way that could lead to two further shafts in the Rustenburg complex being placed on care and maintenance, putting more jobs at risk, Anglo Platinum (Angloplat) CEO Neville Nicolau said last week.

The shafts would join the Blesbok shaft, which Angloplat announced earlier this year had been put on care and maintenance, and job cuts would go beyond the 11 931 that had already been shed since the end of the third quarter of 2008.

Headcount reduction was also continuing at Angloplat’s head office and regional offices. The company had identified production that was unlikely to pass the profit test in the medium term, resulting in more jobs being reviewed. “We’ve put Blesbok shaft on care and maintenance, and we’ll probably put the two shafts we’re looking at on care and maintenance as well. They’re put on care and maintenance with the idea that, if the market circumstances do change, we’ll be able to recreate those job opportunities,” Nicolau said.

A part of the restructuring process, which Angloplat intended to complete “in the coming months”, was the adjustment and elimination of overhead costs associated with the shafts.

“These efforts will improve the cost of our Rustenburg mines and, in time, will move them from the fourth quartile to the third quartile on the cost curve,” he said. If the two shafts under scrutiny were closed, it would result in the loss of 140 000 oz of high-cost production, a shortfall which Angloplat aimed to make up from efficiency improvements at its other mines.

“As such, we maintain our production target of 2,4-million ounces for this year,” Nicolau said, but with a flexibility plan that could increase that output to 2,6-million ounces should market demand dictate that. The company was looking to fix, close or sell high-cost shafts or operations that were unlikely to be profitable in the medium term.

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