Martin Preece has his work cut out for him picking up where Nico Muller left off in trying to bring operational stability to the problematic South Deep mine, Gold Fields’s last remaining South African mine. In the latest quarterly update from Gold Fields, which has mines in Australia, Ghana and Peru, the fragile nature of the ramp-up at South Deep was highlighted after two deaths at the mine meant severe setbacks in production and costs. Gold Fields is executing an expansion project at its opencast Damang mine in Ghana and is involved in the Gruyere project in Australia, which both contributed to an increase in the company’s all-in costs for the quarter to the end of March. The most notable aspect of the quarterly update was the difficult period for its R29bn decade-old South Deep mine. Muller joined Impala Platinum as CEO in April, leaving Gold Fields as executive vice-president of SA where he had oversight of the South Deep ramp-up project, one he was integral to reconfiguring aft...
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