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Accidents cost Gold Fields 300 kg in lost production - Nick Holland, CEO
In an interview on SAfm @ 18:25 on 17 October 2008
[miningmx.com] -- GOLD Fields needs to stabilise its operations so that it can take advantage of the higher rand gold price, said CEO Nick Holland.
Gold Fields has had a spate of accidents, losing three days of production at Kloof at 75kg. At Driefontein, one day was lost after an accident on Wednesday.
"So all in all probably lost about 300kg for the week, which obviously is a major cost to the company. I think it demonstrates that doing things safely and safer is actually an investment because when you have these accidents you have stoppages," Holland said on SAfm Market Update.
"The gold price has obviously been fluctuating quite wildly over the last couple of weeks, as has everything else," he said.
"The rand has also weakened substantially, so we are at about R258 000/kg this afternoon, and that certainly does mean that the South African operations, if we
can get the momentum back now and build up production again, obviously doing it safely, then we can capitalise on those higher prices - and I think we can make good money for shareholders and for all stakeholders and get Gold Fields back to generating cash flows," he said.
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