Afrimat CEO says firm “caught napping” on Nkomati mine

AFRIMAT’S management was “caught napping” in addressing multiple challenges at its Nkomati Anthracite Mine, CEO Andries van Heerden acknowledged in the company’s annual report, BusinessLive said on Tuesday.The challenges included securing the required environmental impact assessment (EIA) and adjusting the mine’s management structure.“We are thankful to have received a much more comprehensive EIA, which expedited mining across the mining areas. Numerous houses and graves were relocated, along with an Eskom power line, as they were obstructing mining operations. Most of the mining area is now cleared,” he said.Van Heerden acknowledged the executive team should have intervened earlier to analyse operational data.“The market knows that this is a challenging mine. Nevertheless, as an executive team, we should have stepped in earlier to analyse the data being produced. We subsequently made some tough decisions to rectify the situation, and once we did, the results were palpable,” he said.Van Heerden also criticised the length of time taken to approve Afrimat’s acquisition of cement maker Lafarge, adding to calls for faster competition authority processes. The Competition Tribunal approved the $6m purchase of Lafarge SA and its subsidiaries in April 2024 — exactly a year after the deal was first announced.In May, Afrimat reported a sharp decline in headline earnings per share to 72.3 South African cents for the year to end-February from 567.3c in the previous year, whilst operating profit fell by nearly 60%. The decline in earnings was owing to falling iron ore prices and the underperformance of South Africa’s export rail lines.However, the group declared a final dividend per share of 15c.The post Afrimat CEO says firm “caught napping” on Nkomati mine appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com