Anglo American provides 2023 performance update

Duncan Wanblad, Chief Executive of Anglo American, said: “The prospects for mined products have rarely looked better. In the near term, given continuing elevated macro volatility, we are being deliberate in reducing our costs and prioritising our capital to drive more profitable production on a sustainable basis. We are focused on what we can control – safety, operational discipline, and capital allocation. We are confident in our actions to sustain the competitiveness of our world class assets and deliver on our outstanding growth opportunities in the metals and minerals that are so critical now and for generations to come.

“We are building a platform for strengthened and sustainable operational and financial performance. We took early action in 2023 to increase business resilience in the face of ongoing economic and geopolitical volatility, as well as the current cyclical weakness in PGMs and diamonds. As a result, we have already gone a long way towards reducing our business support costs by US$0.5 billion by mid-2024, with an additional US$0.5 billion in annual cost efficiencies identified across our global businesses that we expect to deliver in 2024.

“Operationally, we are improving cost performance and cash generation by reconfiguring a number of our assets to adjust the production profile to near term constraints and market conditions, and thereby also protect longer term value. This includes reducing production at Kumba in line with prolonged logistics constraints, focusing on higher margin own-production through our PGMs processing facilities, and moving to one plant at the Los Bronces copper operation in Chile. As a result of such initiatives, we expect to deliver lower unit costs in 2024, despite high inflation, and US$1.8 billion lower capital expenditure in the 2023 – 2026 period.

“Anglo American’s differentiated investment proposition is underpinned by the high quality and diversification of our portfolio, which includes a number of unmatched resources and industry leading positions. Each of our businesses has a dynamic role within the overall portfolio, at different times delivering cash returns and supporting through-the-cycle investment – in copper and crop nutrients in particular – positioning us well to supply into structural long-term demand growth.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/finance-business/12122023/anglo-american-provides-2023-performance-update/