MINING group Harmony Gold said yesterday that it met its annual production guidance and, for the first time, had a loss-of-life-free January and February this calendar year.
It achieved its revised 2022 production guidance of between 1 480 000 and 1.56-million ounces.
Harmony said in a statement the South African underground assets performed well amid tough operating conditions.
In Papua New Guinea, its Hidden Valley mine resumed full production after the overland belt failure in January 2022.
“This strategically important asset performed well in the fourth quarter, with good prospects for the new financial year. We continue to progress the Special Mining Lease for the Tier 1 copper-gold Wafi-Golpu project,“ it said.
Chief executive Peter Steenkamp said: “Financial 2022 has been a year in which Harmony has again shown its ability to turn headwinds into opportunities. Not only did we meet our annual production guidance, but we took a bold step forward on our decarbonisation journey.
“We finished this financial year on the front foot, confident and with good momentum. Our brownfield and greenfield pipeline, alongside the renewable energy projects, will ensure continued value creation for our shareholders and stakeholders,” he said.
The group said the solid platform it built throughout the 2022 financial year placed it in a strong position to deliver operationally.
“Our de-risked and the diversified portfolio continues to perform well, while the various business improvement initiatives and capital projects have positioned Harmony well for the year ahead,” the group said.
Harmony said it achieved some extraordinary safety milestones as a company, and said despite its progress it had only been on its journey to embed a proactive safety culture for a short while.
“A tragic reminder that more needs to be done was having 13 of our colleagues lose their lives during the course of FY22. Loss-of-life prevention in the workplace remains our foremost priority and each such loss weighs heavily on our shoulders,” it said.
According to Harmony, traditional high-risk agencies such as falls of ground and rail-bound equipment both demonstrated significant improvements.
“We are seeing an increase in white flag (accident-free) days and, for the first time in our history, had a loss-of-life-free January and February this calendar year. We have also seen our lost time injury frequency rate trend below six per 1 million shifts for three consecutive quarters.
“Our safety journey, however, requires each one of us to remain vigilant of our surroundings while not being afraid to exercise our right to refuse entry to a place of work if deemed unsafe,” the group said.
The group also announced that it had secured a R1.5bn green loan linked to sustainable performance indicators, and the group is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2045.
BUSINESS REPORT