Johannesburg - South Africa's largest copper producer
Palabora Mining Company [JSE:PAM] reported a swing to a full year loss on Wednesday as
copper production fell by a third.
A headline loss of 171 cents per share was posted for the
year to end December compared to a profit of 3,036 cents the year before.
The company said while full year magnetite production
increased 54%, full year refined copper production was 31% lower.
Its earnings were also hurt by softening copper and
magnetite prices.
Palabora's shareholding changed in December when a
consortium of South African and Chinese companies bought a 74.5% stake from
global mining groups Rio Tinto and Anglo American [JSE:AGL].
The Industrial Development Corporation, a state-run
development group, and three Chinese firms have agreed to pay R110 per share
for the stake, valuing the copper miner at R5.3bn.
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