Anglo American cuts iron ore guidance

  • Thursday, December 15, 2022
  • Source:ferro-alloys.com

  • Keywords:Anglo American, iron ore guidance
[Fellow]UK-South African mining firm Anglo American has lowered its iron ore production guidance for 2022, 2023 and 2024.

[Ferro-Alloys.com]

UK-South African mining firm Anglo American has lowered its iron ore production guidance for 2022, 2023 and 2024 because of infrastructure issues in South Africa and hard ore in Brazil.
 
It expects to produce 59mn t of iron ore in 2022, down from its previous guidance of 60mn-64mn t, leaving it with a target of 14.5mn t in October-December after it produced 43.6mn t in January-September. It blamed rail access issues for its lower iron ore guidance in 2022 and beyond.
 
The firm cut its iron ore guidance to 57mn-61mn t from 64mn-68mn t in 2023 and to 61mn-65mn t from 67mn-71mn t in 2024, as well as issuing a new guidance of 64mn-68mn t for 2025.
 
Iron ore output is fundamentally constrained by rail operator Transnet, Anglo American chief executive Duncan Wanblad said. It is possible that Transnet will allow the Kumba iron ore operations in South Africa to return to producing 41mn-43mn t/yr but that will require a lot of work, he added. Anglo expects Kumba to produce around 37mn t in each of the next three years, down from around 41mn t. It issued a new guidance of 39mn-41mn t for Kumba in 2025.
 
The firm also cut its forecasts for its Minas-Rio iron ore operations in Brazil, blaming harder and more compact ore than it had expected. It expects to produce 22mn t in 2022, at the bottom of its previous guidance of 22mn-24mn t. It revised its target for 2023 down by 3mn t to 22mn-24mn t and for 2024 by 2mn t to 24mn-26mn t, and issued a new guidance of 25mn-27mn t for 2025.
 
Anglo American remains confident about the long term demand for its iron ore products, particularly as steelmakers look to reduce emissions by using higher grade iron ore feed.
 
"Higher grade iron requires less steelmaking coal reductant and lump ore allows producers to skip the emissions-intensive sintering process," Wanblad said. "We produce around a 67pc Fe pellet-feed product at Minas-Rio and around a 64pc Fe product at Kumba, with two-thirds of that being lump."
 
Anglo expects to produce iron ore at a cost of $40/wet metric tonne (wmt) fob in 2022, up from $33/wmt in 2021, but also expects this to ease to $39/wmt in 2023.

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  • [Editor:kangmingfei]

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