After 14 months of year-on-year contractions in mining production, South Africa in April recorded a 2.3% year-on-year increase in output to April.
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) reports that the biggest positive contributors to the increase were gold and coal, while diamonds, platinum group metals (PGMs) and manganese ore were the largest negative contributors.
Gold production increased by 27.4% year-on-year, contributing 3.5 percentage points, while coal output increased by 12.5%, contributing 3.1 percentage points to the April figure.
Diamond production decreased by 41.1%, PGMs by 4.6% and manganese ore by 12.1%, contributing decreases of -2, -1.1 and -1 percentage points, respectively.
Further, seasonally adjusted mining production increased by 1.8% month-on-month in April. This followed month-on-month changes of 6.9% in March and -7% in February.
Seasonally adjusted mining production for the three months ended April increased by 0.4%, compared with the previous three months.
Gold and PGMs were the largest contributors to this increase.
Meanwhile, mineral sales at current prices decreased by 25.6% year-on-year in April. The largest negative contributors were PGMs (-41.7% and contributing -15.2 percentage points); coal (-22.9% and contributing -6.2 percentage points); and gold (-45.7% and contributing -3.5 percentage points).
Chromium ore (61.5% and contributing 2.2 percentage points) was a significant positive contributor.
Further, seasonally adjusted mineral sales at current prices decreased by 10.1% in April compared with March. This followed month-on-month changes of -2.9% in March and -1.7% in February.
The seasonally adjusted value of mineral sales at current prices for the three months ended April was 5% lower compared with the previous three months.