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Gold Fields said it may cut more than 1 100 workers at its huge, loss-making South Deep operation in South Africa and will refocus the mine plan after repeated turnaround efforts failed.
South Deep, Gold Fields’s sole remaining mine in its home country and the world’s second-biggest known body of gold-bearing ore, has lost R4bn over five years, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. It’s also spent about R32bn on the asset since 2006.
“Management believes that the mine can no longer sustain these cash losses,” Gold Fields said. “The proposed restructuring at South Deep aims to consolidate mining activity to increase focus and to match the cost structure to the current level of performance.”
Gold Fields will reduce labour at South Deep, including potential cuts of about 460 contractors, and cut its equipment fleet, it said. Previous forecasts for production can no longer be relied on and the company isn’t yet able to predict how much gold it will produce at South Deep going forward. It took a further writedown on the mine of R4.8bn.
“Once the full impact of the mine planning exercise and proposed restructuring is completed, we will provide guidance for 2019 and beyond,” it said.
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