[Ferro-Alloys.com] South African mining production increased by 7.5% year-on-year in January, Statistics South Africa’s data shows.

This was the biggest year-on-year rise in mining output since November 2017 when production increased by 7.8%.

The largest positive contributors to January’s output were iron-ore (27.9% and contributing 2.8 percentage points); platinum group metals, or PGMs (10.2% and contributing 2.5 percentage points) and coal (2.3% and contributing 0.6 of a percentage point).

Meanwhile, seasonally adjusted mining production increased by 6% month-on-month in January. This followed month-on-month changes of -5.2% in December 2019 and -1.9% in November 2019.

Seasonally adjusted mining production decreased by 1.1% in the three months ended January, compared with the previous three months.

The two largest negative contributors were coal (-6.4% and contributing -1.6 percentage points) and manganese ore (-13.3% and contributing -1.0 percentage point).

PGMs (5.4% and contributing 1.2 percentage points) and iron-ore (10.4% and contributing 1.1 percentage points) were significant positive contributors. Mineral sales increased by 24.2% year-on-year in January.

The largest positive contributors were PGMs (85.3% and contributing 18.1 percentage points); iron-ore (43.4% and contributing 4.8 percentage points); gold (9.0% and contributing 1.5 percentage points) and nickel (108.0% and contributing 1.3 percentage points).

Seasonally adjusted mineral sales at current prices increased by 22.9% in January compared with December 2019.

This followed month-on-month changes of -10.1% in December 2019 and 6.1% in November 2019.

For the three months ended January, the seasonally adjusted value of mineral sales at current prices was 7.2% higher compared with the previous three months.

• [Editor:tianyawei]