Anglogold silent on offloading rumours

ANGLOGOLD Ashanti yesterday remained mum on claims that it planned to sell its South African assets after rumours suggested the world’s third largest gold producer had already offloaded some of its units to Harmony Gold Mining Company.

AngloGold Ashanti chief executive Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan said yesterday: “We are sticking to our response. We do not comment on any speculation regarding any asset specifics or any corporate issue,” he said on the sidelines of the company’s financial results presentation.

Talks between AngloGold Ashanti and Harmony Gold on the transaction are said to have stalled, due to uncertainty over the recently gazetted Mining Charter, it was reported earlier this month.

The charter, which was gazetted on June 15, requires that black ownership in mines increase to 30 percent from the current 26 percent level.

AngloGold said in June that it planned to place its 36-yearold Kopanang mine on care and maintenance, and the Savuka section of the 60-year-old TauTona mine which would result in the retrenchment of 8 500 employees.

It also said that it planned to evaluate the feasibility of integrating elements of the TauTona mine into the neighbouring Mponeng mine.

AngloGold said that it had begun a consultation process in line with the Section 189 of the Labour Relations Act to mitigate job losses, with talks led by the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration under way.

The company’s chief operations officer for South Africa, Chris Sheppard, yesterday said that job losses were a last resort, particularly because the unemployment rate in South Africa was at a 14-year high.

Sheppard said that the company had considered integrating TauTona into the Mponeng Mine, similar to some years back when the company had integrated the Savuka operation into TauTona, resulting in the extension of the life of mine.

He said that there was no change in the looming job losses.

AngloGold shares fell 2.59 percent on the JSE yesterday to close at R131.18.