{"id":12104,"date":"2012-07-04T12:13:52","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T10:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/update-1-aquarius-platinum-to-limit-mining-to-preserve-cash\/"},"modified":"2012-07-04T12:13:52","modified_gmt":"2012-07-04T10:13:52","slug":"update-1-aquarius-platinum-to-limit-mining-to-preserve-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-aquarius-platinum-to-limit-mining-to-preserve-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-Aquarius Platinum to limit mining to preserve cash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">LONDON, July 4<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa-focused miner<br \/>\nAquarius Platinum, the world&#8217;s fourth largest platinum<br \/>\nproducer, said it planned to limit mining activities to<br \/>\nconcentrate on conserving cash and guarding its reserves until<br \/>\neconomic circumstances changed.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The platinum sector in South Africa, home to around 80<br \/>\npercent of known platinum reserves, is battling the impact of<br \/>\nfalling prices, weak demand, soaring costs and a government<br \/>\nsafety drive that has cut production as operations are suspended<br \/>\nfor safety violations.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We seem to be one of the few companies in the platinum<br \/>\nindustry that is willing pro-actively to take the required tough<br \/>\ndecisions to close the mines,&#8221; Aquarius chief executive Stuart<br \/>\nMurray said, referring to the three mines where the company has<br \/>\nhalted operations.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would hope that the other industry players follow suit<br \/>\nand cut the unneeded production that is depressing the<br \/>\nindustry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Aquarius said on Wednesday that it would suspend all<br \/>\nnon-essential capital expenditure and focus on its Kroondal,<br \/>\nMimosa and tailings operations to maximise cash flow generation.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The company said it expected the price of platinum, a<br \/>\nprecious metal used to make catalytic converters in cars, to<br \/>\nremain stagnant while operating costs continued to rise.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In this environment, the only defensible strategy is to cut<br \/>\nall non-essential capital expenditure, and place all<br \/>\nnon-contributing assets on care and maintenance while optimising<br \/>\nprofitable operations for maximum contribution in the current<br \/>\nlow price environment,&#8221; Aquarius said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Anglo American Platinum, a unit of global miner<br \/>\nAnglo American warned on Monday that its first-half<br \/>\nearnings would fall more than 20 percent due to lower sales and<br \/>\nfalling prices.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Shares in Aquarius, which have crashed 66 percent in the<br \/>\nlast three months, closed at 51 pence on Tuesday, valuing the<br \/>\ncompany at 226.3 million pounds ($355 million).<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON, July 4 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa-focused miner Aquarius Platinum, the world&#8217;s fourth largest platinum producer, said it planned to limit mining activities to concentrate on conserving cash and guarding its reserves until economic circumstances changed. The platinum sector in South Africa, home to around 80 percent of known platinum reserves, is battling the impact [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}