Kumba fears no long-term strike effects

[miningmx.com] — Johannesburg – Kumba Iron Ore, which is 64% owned by Anglo American, on Monday said it is confident that the Transnet strike will have no long-term effect on the company’s exports.

Issuing an update on the impact of the strike, Kumba said it was pleased to note the statement made by Transnet that the strike by the majority union of the Transnet workforce has ended and that, even though a minority union is still out on strike, rail operations would normalise during this week.

“Kumba implemented contingency plans to aide the railing and loading of iron ore
for export throughout the strike. These plans were successful in mitigating the impact of the strike action upon Kumba’s operations, to the extent that Kumba was able to continue to rail significant ore volumes down the Iron Ore Export Channel and load at Saldanha Port,” Kumba said in a statement.

Kumba said as at 08:00 on Monday, it had railed 70%, and loaded 78%, of its
contractual volumes for the period of the strike.

“As such, Kumba’s railage plans were negatively impacted by only 470 000t and
its loading plans by only 327 000t,” the company said.

Some stockpiles were used to help meet our contractual obligations with customers.

As at Monday, stock levels at Saldanha Port were 1.55 million tonnes, compared with 1.7 million tonnes when the strike started on three weeks ago.

Production at Sishen Mine and Thabazimbi Mine was not affected and continued as
planned throughout the period.

“Kumba is confident that the backlog in delivery and loading will be made up in
due course and that the strike should have no long-term effect on the company’s
exports,” the company said.

At 12:54 shares in Kumba were 2.19% or R6.79 firmer at R316.79 on the
JSE.