Global miner Anglo American says its production for the fourth quarter of 2021 was flat compared with output in the fourth quarter of 2020.

CEO Mark Cutifani noted on January 27 that operating levels across the group had been at about 95% of normal capacity throughout 2021 as a result of Covid-19-related effects.

"Production in the fourth quarter [however] benefited from higher rough diamond production at De Beers, a return to pre-Covid production levels at our opencut metallurgical (met) coal mines and an improved mining performance at Amandelbult, which resulted in higher metal-in-concentrate production from our platinum group metals (PGMs) business.

"At our copper operations, Collahuasi's production increased as a result of strong plant performance and planned maintenance in the comparable period of 2020," he commented.

Rough diamond production increased by 15% year-on-year to 7.7-million carats for the fourth quarter, while Anglo's PGMs operations more than doubled its refined production in the quarter.

Copper production was 4% lower year-on-year at 161 000 t for the quarter, while nickel output decreased by 9% year-on-year to 10 600 t.

Manganese ore production also decreased, by 11% year-on-year, to 835 000 t, while iron-ore output fell by 7% year-on-year to 15.10-million tonnes.

Met coal production, however, increased by 5% year-on-year to 4.4-million tonnes.

For the full year, Anglo recorded production growth for diamonds, PGMs, iron-ore and manganese ore.

Diamond output increased by 29% year-on-year to 32.30-million tonnes; PGM production by 13% to 4.3-million ounces, iron-ore by 3% to 63.8-million tonnes and manganese ore production by 5% to 3.68-million tonnes.

Copper output for the full-year was flat at 647 000 t.

Met coal production decreased by 11% year-on-year to 14.9-million tonnes for the full-year, while nickel production decreased by 4% year-on-year to 41 700 t.

For 2022, Anglo has set the production guidance for diamonds at between 30-million and 33-million carats, for copper at between 680 000 t and 760 000 t, for PGMs at between 4.1-million and 4.5-million ounces, for iron-ore at between 63-million and 67-million tonnes, for nickel at between 40 000 t and 42 000 t and, for met coal, at between 20-million and 22-million tonnes.

"As we move into 2022, we are pleased with the construction progress at Quellaveco, our new copper mine in Peru. We are on track and within budget, we mined our first ore in October 2021, and we are expecting our first production of copper concentrate in the middle of this year.

"In the first quartile of the cost curve, we expect Quellaveco to produce 120 000 t to 160 000 t in 2022 and to average 300 000 t/y for the first ten years at full production," Cutifani highlighted.

In terms of manganese ore, Anglo notes that its South African smelter has been on care and maintenance since early 2020 and that the group is divesting the Metalloys business – a process it expects to complete this year.