{"id":6040,"date":"2011-12-13T00:11:07","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T22:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/12\/update-2-s-africa-platinum-sector-hit-by-safety-stoppages\/"},"modified":"2011-12-13T00:11:07","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T22:11:07","slug":"update-2-s-africa-platinum-sector-hit-by-safety-stoppages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-2-s-africa-platinum-sector-hit-by-safety-stoppages\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 2-S.Africa platinum sector hit by safety stoppages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Mines minister has said industry inspections to rise<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Platinum production down sharply in October<\/p>\n<p> (Recasts background, details)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Ed Stoddard<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, Dec 12 (Reuters) &#8211; Northam Platinum<br \/>\n, one of South Africa&#8217;s smaller platinum producers, said<br \/>\non Monday its only producing mine has been hit by several<br \/>\nstoppages due to government safety inspections, part of a wider<br \/>\ncampaign that has hit the sector.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Analysts have speculated that a sharp fall in overall<br \/>\nplatinum production in South Africa in October was the result of<br \/>\nincreased stoppages related to surprise inspections as part of a<br \/>\ngovernment drive to boost safety.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Northam&#8217;s Zondereinde mine has, for a number of months,<br \/>\nbeen the subject of unannounced inspections from the DMR&#8217;s<br \/>\nsafety inspectorate,&#8221; Marion Brower, a spokesperson for Northam,<br \/>\nsaid.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These have frequently resulted in DMR-enforced safety<br \/>\nstoppages in certain sections of the mine,&#8221; she said in an<br \/>\ne-mailed response to questions from Reuters.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mines minister Susan Shabangu said in November her<br \/>\nDepartment of Mineral Resources (DMR) would be increasing health<br \/>\nand safety audits of mines in the face of a &#8220;culture of<br \/>\nnon-compliance&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Northam did not say how many ounces it had lost in output<br \/>\nfrom the stoppages.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Mines minister has said industry inspections to rise * Platinum production down sharply in October (Recasts background, details) By Ed Stoddard JOHANNESBURG, Dec 12 (Reuters) &#8211; Northam Platinum , one of South Africa&#8217;s smaller platinum producers, said on Monday its only producing mine has been hit by several stoppages due to government safety inspections, [&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-6040","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\/6040","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=6040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}