When measuring production for the first six months of 2024 relative to the corresponding period in 2023, the news is somewhat better, with total mining production eking out a modest increase of 0.3% year-on-year (y-o-y). Although this is only a small rise in production, it is an improvement after real mining output declined by 0.2% in 2023. This followed a significant contraction of 7.2% in 2022. In overall terms, real mining production in Q2 2024 was 8.7% lower than pre- COVID level in Q4 2019.

Manganese and chrome stand out as the only subcategories that increased over this period. At the other end of the scale, production of iron ore and gold performed the worst. This indicates that a record-high nominal gold price has not been able to arrest the deep structural decline in the domestic gold sector.

To a large extent, the weakness in iron ore and coal production was due to Transnet’s logistical problems, most notably a significant railway maintenance backlog. To put some numbers to this problem, data from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) indicates that the volume of South African coal exports declined by 4.6% y-o-y in the first six months of 2024. In the case of platinum group metals (PGMs), production has been curtailed in response to a sustained low PGMs basket price. The impact of this is also clearly illustrated in the latest mineral sales data. This indicated that the value of total mineral sales was down by 0.7% y-o-y in H1 2024, driven by a double- digit decline in the sales value of PGMs.