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Johannesburg - Kumba Iron Ore reported a rise in full-years earnings on Tuesday, due to higher export prices and a weaker rand, and said its labour environment had greatly improved since a crippling and violent illegal strike in 2012.
Kumba, Africa's top iron ore producer, said diluted headline earnings per share for the year to end-December rose to R48.02 from 38.76 a year earlier. The company had flagged to the market that it expected a number between R46.60 and R49.00.
Headline EPS, the main measure of profit in South Africa, excludes certain one-time items.
Kumba is a unit of Anglo American and is the biggest contributor to the latter's profits, making it a stand-out in the global mining group's troubled portfolio in the southern African region, which includes the world's top platinum producer Anglo Platinum (Amplats).
Kumba's improved earnings and Amplats' return to profit in 2013 both in part reflected their recovery from the wave of illegal strikes, rooted in a bruising union turf war, which swept the mining sector in 2012.
Amplats is still reeling from an almost three-week strike in the platinum sector by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), which has poached tens of thousands of members from the once unrivalled National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in the labour conflict.
Amplats also faced a number of brief strikes last year as Amcu protested against planned job cuts.
Kumba said it had worked hard to improve the labour environment at its operations, centred in the remote and sparsely populated Northern Cape province.
"In Kumba, 2013 saw improved relations with no significant work stoppages, quite different from 2012 when we had a serious unprotected strike at Sishen mine," the company said.
"This was achieved by significantly improving communication with our employees and instituting a number of post-strike studies and remedial actions," it added.
Kumba, Africa's top iron ore producer, said diluted headline earnings per share for the year to end-December rose to R48.02 from 38.76 a year earlier. The company had flagged to the market that it expected a number between R46.60 and R49.00.
Headline EPS, the main measure of profit in South Africa, excludes certain one-time items.
Kumba is a unit of Anglo American and is the biggest contributor to the latter's profits, making it a stand-out in the global mining group's troubled portfolio in the southern African region, which includes the world's top platinum producer Anglo Platinum (Amplats).
Kumba's improved earnings and Amplats' return to profit in 2013 both in part reflected their recovery from the wave of illegal strikes, rooted in a bruising union turf war, which swept the mining sector in 2012.
Amplats is still reeling from an almost three-week strike in the platinum sector by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), which has poached tens of thousands of members from the once unrivalled National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in the labour conflict.
Amplats also faced a number of brief strikes last year as Amcu protested against planned job cuts.
Kumba said it had worked hard to improve the labour environment at its operations, centred in the remote and sparsely populated Northern Cape province.
"In Kumba, 2013 saw improved relations with no significant work stoppages, quite different from 2012 when we had a serious unprotected strike at Sishen mine," the company said.
"This was achieved by significantly improving communication with our employees and instituting a number of post-strike studies and remedial actions," it added.
