Loading ...AngloGold says there’s no escaping demise of South African gold
(Bloomberg) — South Africa’s gold industry, once the world’s largest, faces an inevitable decline, according to the chairman of the country’s biggest producer of the metal by market value.
Output will continue to shrink as miners chase ever-deeper ore bodies while struggling to keep costs down, said AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. Chairman Sipho Pityana. That means the Johannesburg-based company has decisions to make about its future in the country.
Gold Street Is Where South Africa’s Mining History Goes to Die
“Gold is a sunset industry,” Pityana said in an interview last week in Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office. “It doesn’t matter what you do, it doesn’t matter how you do it, you are not going to be able to change that.”
South Africa’s gold mines are the world’s deepest and among the most labor intensive. The country’s gold production dropped 16 percent in May from a year earlier, falling for an eighth straight month, as aging infrastructure, depleted reserves and accidents raise costs and curb output.
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