SAfrica power crisis halts gold, platinum mining

By James Macharia

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's three top gold producers and the world's biggest platinum miner suspended production at all their mines in the country on Friday due to a power crisis, helping send precious metal prices to new highs.

Shares in all the affected firms dived as the government on Friday called the power cuts that have gripped Africa's biggest economy for days "a national emergency".

AngloGold Ashanti (ANGJ.J), Gold Fields (GFIJ.J), and Harmony (HARJ.J) said they had stopped all gold mining after they were informed by state-owned power utility Eskom ESCJ.UL that it could not guarantee power supply to their operations.

"We are only running power for emergency supplies, such as pumping water out, and have stopped producing at all mines," Steve Lenahan, a spokesman for AngloGold, the world's third biggest gold producer, told Reuters.

Officials said they did not know when normal power supplies would resume, or when they would re-start production.

"Eskom did not give us clarity on that, we don't know how long this will last," Graham Briggs, the chief executive officer at Harmony told Reuters.

"It seems to me this is not going to be a quick process (resolution). They issued us with a warning that we should only do emergency work, so we can't take a chance sending our people underground."

Briggs said Harmony expected to lose some 300 kg of gold output a day or 60 million rand in cash terms.

The world's No. 1 platinum producer, Anglo Platinum (Angloplat) (AMSJ.J), also said it had shut down production at all its South African mines to reduce electricity consumption.

"We are not mining at all of our operations. We have decided not to produce in order to reduce electricity consumption," spokesman Trevor Raymond told Reuters.

"We are not sure how long this will last."

Angloplat, which accounts for 40 percent of world supplies of the metal used for jewellery and cleaning car exhausts, is expected to lose 9,000 refined platinum ounces output a day.

Raymond said he could not give a figure as the firm was in a closed period with its results due soon. But during last month's one-day strike over safety, Angloplat said it had lost 9,000 ounces, equivalent to one day's production.

The world's second-biggest platinum miner, Impala Platinum (Implats) (IMPJ.J), also said it had stopped operations at its largest mine near Rustenburg and expected to lose 3,500 ounces of refined platinum a day after the halt.

But Implats said it would continue to produce at its smaller and shallower Marikana mine.