Pan African eyes acquisitions across continent
New projects to supplement SA mines
Mines both in Mpumalanga, and the Uitkoms Colliery in KwaZulu-Natal, among others.
Loos said Pan African was also finalising a feasibility study on the Elikhulu, a gold tailings project near Evander.
He said if the study was successful, production in the area would commence within two years.
Under review Pan African rose 4.55 percent to R3.45 a share on the JSE yesterday on posting record profits and a robust operational performance for the period under review.
Pan African also proposed to pay a record R300 million dividend in the year under review with shareholders expected to vote at the company’s annual general meeting to be held in London in November.
Hurbey Geldenhuys, head of Research at Vunani Securities said Pan African had posted a good performance, with the potential to repeat this going forward. He warned, however, that the acquisitions the company wanted to embark on needed to be carefully considered.
“Asset prices have already gone up, it may be too late to be a buyer and not overpay. The retreatment project is a must do. One of the best unmined options left in South Africa. They have excellent track record for unlocking these kinds of assets. Capital expenditure is high, but probably a lot less than what they will have to fork out for any decent other mine,” said Geldenhuys, referring to the Elikhulu project.
However, safety regressed with one fatality for the year under review.
Pan African head of safety Mandla Ndlozi said the company had dismissed mine captains at its Evander Mine, Mpumalanga, for under-reporting accidents and had put measures to improve reporting.
Ndlozi said accidents had been hidden to attain performance bonuses.
“Accidents were hidden and in the second quarter we investigated the issue and dismissed a number of people,” said Ndlozi.