Long strikes and safety stoppages, rising costs and falling metal prices have coincided with expensive growth projects to force the world’s second-largest platinum miner into a politically charged restructuring, sending its shares to 19-year lows. On Friday, Impala Platinum’s (Implats’s) share price hit a low of R17.76, a level not seen in nearly two decades and far below the average price in that period of R102.75 a share. Implats is the last of the major producers to announce a fundamental shakeup of its workforce and operations to cope with profit margins eroded by soaring costs, while platinum group metal prices have been soft for a sustained period.
Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) has reaped the benefits of moving quickly, realising as far back as 2013 it needed to move fast to get out of traditional deep-level, labour-intensive mining into shallow, mechanised and cheaper mining operations. The strategy has kept the Anglo American subsidiary firmly in control of its dom...
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