POINT OF ORDER
TIM COHEN: How SA turned gold mining riches into rusty ruins
While our attentions have been focused on the ever-engrossing political manoeuvrings this past week, one important event might have escaped our attention: SA’s greatest gold mining company has in effect left the country. You can tell it has left because AngloGold Ashanti spokesmen have told us the company is definitely not leaving the country. But the fact remains that the group has just one mine and a tailings operation left in SA. This follows the sale of the Moab Khotsong mine, the mothballed Great Noligwa mines and its uranium assets to Harmony Gold, and the sale of its Kopanang mine to China’s Heaven-Sent SA Sunshine Investment company for a total of R4.2bn. The result is that AngloGold, which not so long ago was among the top five mining companies in the world, will drop about 500,000oz of annual production off its anticipated annual production of about 3.6-million ounces. The South African portion of that will drop from about 950,000oz to half that, although it is about to in...
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