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08.11.2013 Business & Finance

AngloGold Sacks 430 Ghanaian Workers

By Daily Guide
Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer, AngloGold AshantiSrinivasan Venkatakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer, AngloGold Ashanti
08.11.2013 LISTEN

AngloGold Ashanti, Africa's top bullion producer, has disclosed that it would cut 430 jobs at its beleaguered Obuasi Mines.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AngloGold Ashanti, Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan, who disclosed this to journalists during a telephone conference call, said the move will help the company to cut costs.

He said the company had consulted Organized Labour over the job cuts in Ghana, adding that the firm hopes to achieve at least $500 million in savings by the end of the year.

The CEO said the company was 'trying to close a sale' for its small Navachab operations in Namibia too.

Meanwhile, AngloGold Ashanti said it had edged back into profit in the third quarter, attributing it to ramped-up output and lower production costs.

The South Africa-based firm, which has operations across Africa, the Americas and Australia, eked out a shareholder profit of $1 million in the quarter.

In the previous quarter, the firm reported losses of nearly $2.2 billion on massive write-downs linked to the slumping gold price.

The profit was achieved by a mixture of higher production, cost cutting and a weaker South African rand.

In the last quarter, production increased by 12 percent to top one million ounces, with major increases seen in Namibian and Ghanaian operations, which helped AngloGold cut the cost of production from $898 per ounce in the second quarter to $809 per ounce in the third quarter.

Despite recording high wage bills in strike-hit South Africa, AngloGold followed other producers in accepting an average wage increase of around eight percent.

'Operational performance for the third quarter was strong with both production and costs coming in better than the previous quarter and market guidance,' the firm stated.

By Cephas Larbi
 
 

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