Anglo American’s production was substantially impacted by industry shutdowns accounting for an 11pc decline in overall output, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company responded to the pandemic quickly to protect the reliability and continuity of company operations. However, H1 2020 has resulted in difficulty for the industry, to the greatest extent, Mark Cutifani, Anglo American’s chief executive stated.
During the next half, Anglo expects its product variation and operating method to remain beneficial to the company. As business improves globally, the miner’s copper, iron ore and platinum group metals (PGMs) sector are in a good position for the most part.
Looking ahead, Anglo continues devoting to high quality developments and expects production to commence at its Quellaveco copper project in Peru in 2022, despite the extended business slowdowns, indicating strong progress made before March.
In addition to the production drop, the global miner was impacted by a 16pc drop in revenue due to events at its metallurgical coal business and PGMs sector. However, the reductions were moderately balanced by healthy activity at its Brazilian iron ore and Chilean copper mines.
The company resumed 90pc of its production capacity by late June across its entire group, with substantial improvement in operations making the business stronger. It recorded $3.4bn in underlying EBITDA in H1 2020, a 39pc decline from $5.5bn in underlying EBITDA in H1 2019. Anglo reported $12.5bn in revenue in first half this year, down 16pc from $14.8bn in revenue during the prior year period.