Gold Fields cuts output target as South Deep difficulties persist
The news from the group’s international mines was better, but lower output at its only South African mine led it to cut its full-year group target by as much as 80,000oz
The difficulties at Gold Fields’ South Deep mine persisted into the first quarter of 2018, forcing a downward revision of the operation’s output for the year and lowering the group’s expected production. Gold Fields lowered its forecast for the year to between 2-million and 2.05-million ounces of gold, from between 2.08-million and 2.1-million ounces, because of the drop in gold expected to come from South Deep. Gold Fields has a large and growing international portfolio of gold mines and projects, but the South Deep project, which is ramping up to 480,000oz of gold in 2022, is often a focal point because of the ongoing difficulties the company has had in bringing to account the mine, in which it has invested heavily. In 2017 South Deep, a large, mechanised mine that has already absorbed more than R29bn, undershot its full-year production target and generated 281,000oz of gold instead of the expected 315,000oz because of a poor safety performance in the first quarter of that year. I...
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