South Africa’s mining production decreased by 9.1% year-on-year in August, Statistics South Africa reported on Thursday.
The decrease was driven by lower output in the iron-ore, gold and platinum group metals (PGMs) sectors.
Iron-ore production was down 19.9% year-on-year in August, while gold production decreased by 15.5% year-on-year and PGMs production by 7% year-on-year.
“A disaggregation of August’s data reveals that the decline in production was generally broad based, with ten of the 12 mineral groups falling,” Investec commented on Thursday.
The decrease follows on the 4.1% year-on-year decrease in mining production recorded for July.
Investec pointed out that mining production for the year to date is down 1.7% year-on-year.
Mineral sales, meanwhile, increased by 4.3% year-on-year in August, with the biggest positive contributors being the manganese ore, coal and 'other' metallic minerals sectors.
Manganese ore sales rose by 47.2% year-on-year, coal sales by 7.3% year-on-year and 'other' metallic minerals 86.5% year-on-year.