(HAR.JO) declared a dividend for the year ended June 30 for the first time since December 2012 after swinging back to profit on higher gold prices and the weakness of the South African rand against the dollar.
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Reporting full-year figures ended June today, the group said it would grow production through organic expansions and through acquisition.
“We’ve identified specific targets we’d like to pursue, focusing on three areas”, chief executive officer Peter Steenkamp said on a call with reporters Wednesday.
Also, net debt (primarily denominated in the local currency) was cut 61% to $74 million as revenue in rand terms was up 19% off the back of the weaker currency. That compares with a loss of R1.89 the previous year.
Harmony plans to pay a dividend of R0.5 a share after posting headline earnings of R2.21 a share for the year to June 30.
In the 2016 financial year, the all-in sustaining cost increased by 3% to R467,526/kg, while the average rand gold price shot up by a fifth to R544,984/kg.
Acacia is Tanzania’s biggest mining company and operates three major gold mines there – Bulyanhulu, Buzwagi and North Mara.
Harmony Gold is looking to expand operations in Africa and also Papua New Guinea. “We don’t believe that’s the right place to spend the capital”.
Harmony Gold Mining Company said it will effectively stop mining Kusasalethu in five years, reducing the life of its third-largest mine by about 19 years. Kusasalethu employs about 4,500 people. “There is one proviso in that we are doing an optimisation study to push it [life of mine] out further”. To increase the volumes, we’d have to put a lot of capital into the project.
Harmony has made a decision to stop mining at Kusasalethu in five years, which effectively shortens the life of the mine by about 19 years.
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“The shorter life of mine plan at Kusasalethu optimises the mine’s cash flow at a higher grade and creates a much stronger margin, providing us with the option to consider the feasibility to access the high grade VCR payshoot below infrastructure in the future”, the company said in its published results.
