Johannesburg – Dual-listed Sibanye, which has been on a
massive acquisition spree, says it may retrench about 330 staff.
In a statement on Thursday, the platinum and gold miner
says it will enter in a consultation process over potential retrenchments at its
platinum mines.
It says the proposed retrenchments are “well within the
scope of the Competition Tribunal’s ruling” when it approved Sibanye’s purchase
of Aquarius Platinum and Anglo Platinum’s Rustenburg Operations in March last
year.
Sibanye says a final decision will be taken after
consultation with organised labour representatives and relevant employees.
Sibanye Gold bought Amplats’ Rustenburg mines last year
in a R4.4 billion deal.
This followed its 2015 purchase of Aquarius’ operations
in a deal worth R3.9 billion.
Sibanye, which is a spin-off from Gold Fields, wanted to
tap into platinum to capitalise on a platinum sector shake-up following an
unprecedented five-month strike in 2014, which was followed by lower platinum
prices that hit profitability and raised costs in much of the industry.
Those deals put the producer, South Africa's
second-largest gold producer by market value, into the global top five
producers of platinum group metals with annual output of more than a million
ounces.
Amplat’s Rustenburg operations are labour-intensive and
costly, while Aquarius’ operations are mechanised and low cost.
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Its South African platinum operations were followed by a
December announcement in which it said it would buy New York-listed Stillwater
for R30 billion.
That move saw its shares decline on the news.
Stillwater is the only US miner of PGM and the largest
primary producer of PGM outside of South Africa and the Russian Federation.
Located in Montana, US, Stillwater’s operations consist of two underground
PGM mines (the Stillwater Mine and East Boulder Mine), the Blitz Project and
the Columbus metallurgical complex.
Development of the Blitz Project is expected to be
completed in early 2018.
In October, Sibanye was cleared to buy Anglo American
Platinum's Rustenburg mines for $330 million, which followed its $294 million
takeover of Aquarius Platinum last year.