RAND REFINERY GOES ON REDUCED CAPACITY

SOUTH Africa’s Rand Refinery, the continent’s only gold refiner and one of the oldest globally, will continue to operate at reduced capacity during a national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus. The Johannesburgbased company was exempted from a national lockdown that began at midnight yesterday, chief executive Praveen Baijnath said yesterday. While the facility will shut down its smelting plant, it will continue to operate with about 100 workers, Baijnath said. Rand Refinery processes gold for producers, including AngloGold Ashanti and Gold Fields, which operate mines throughout Africa. “The refinery operation will be significantly scaled down, primarily processing residual surface materials from South African gold mines and mined ore received from Rand Refinery’s rest-of-Africa established gold mines,” Baijnath said. While South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered a national lockdown to contain the spread of the virus, the order has also spared processing plants for platinumgroup metals, said Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe. Rand Refinery also refines bullion from the continent’s top gold producers, such as Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania, which it sells on their behalf on the London bullion market. Continuing selling gold brings in vital foreign exchange earnings for the countries which is crucial to their governments’ struggle to minimise the impact of the virus, Baijnath said. | Bloomberg