South Africa’s mining industry, in the second quarter of 2022, recorded its fourth consecutive quarter of production decline, falling by 3.4 % on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Juan-Pierre Terblanche, principal survey statistician at Stats SA who provided an overview of the latest mining production figures said the decline was led by a decrease in gold and coal. Gold production was down by 11.7 % and coal by 5.7%. Miners specializing in Manganese or diamonds and chromium ore also recorded a decline in activity in the second quarter.
On the upside, the production of copper, nickel, PGMs and iron ore quickened in the second quarter. Copper recorded the biggest jump in production, rising by 40.8%. On a month on month basis, seasonally adjusted mining output slipped by 1.4% in June, compared to May 2022. This followed month-on-month changes of 1.2% in May 2022 and -3.8% in April 2022. Mineral sales at current prices decreased by 6.1% year-on-year in June 2022.
The negative contributors were:
· PGMs (-30.8% and contributing -12.8 percentage points);
· Gold (-54.4% and contributing -7.9 percentage points); and
· Iron ore (-22.5% and contributing -3.4 percentage points)
On the other hand, coal (71.1% and contributing 11.0 percentage points) was a significant positive contributor. In the second quarter of 2022 the seasonally adjusted value of mineral sales at current prices was 11.2% higher compared with the first quarter of 2022.
On a year on year basis, production was down by 8.0% in June compared to the same percentage in 2021.
