Diversified mining group Anglo American reported underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $5.0 billion for the first half of 2024, down from $5.1 billion a year earlier.
The company said lower iron ore prices and lower sales volumes, as well as the impact on its manganese asset from a cyclone, impacted its financial results. However, these were largely offset by higher copper prices, a normalisation of favourable platinum group metal concentrate purchases, and significant progress on the company’s cost reduction programmes.
The lower costs and normalisation of concentrate purchases helped Anglo’s underlying EBITDA margin improve to 33% from 31% in the prior year.
However, Duncan Wanblad, Anglo’s chief executive, said net debt had increased only marginally to $11.1 billion, reflecting the discipline it had put in place to optimise capital allocation and free cash flow.
“Our decision to temporarily slow the pace of delivery of the Woodsmith fertiliser project, thereby delaying the start-up date, has reduced the cost of the project by $1.6 billion,” he said.
“As we continue to transform our portfolio, we expect to make significant reductions in overheads and other non-production costs across the stages, with the largest proportion [of cost reductions] coming in the final stages to minimise business risk.”