PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Arrium on Friday announced the sale of its wire ropes business to a Belgium-based firm for A$90-million.
MD and CEO Andrew Roberts told shareholders that despite having a strong leverage to the mineral extraction industry, particularly through its drag line and shovel ropes, the wire ropes business was outside of Arrium’s strategic focus for future growth in mining consumables.
“Our growth in mining consumables is centred on the global mineral processing industry, including capturing at least our share of the expected strong growth in grinding media demand. Our moly-cop grinding media business is well positioned to achieve this with leading market positions in key growth regions of the world, including North America, South America and Australasia.”
Roberts said that the sale of the wire rope business was consistent with the company’s focus on reducing debt, and built on the recent progress made with asset divestments, which for 2015 was expected to net some A$150-million.
Arrium recently also announced the redesign of its South Australian hematite operations, including mothballing its Southern Iron mining operation, as part of an initiative to combat the falling iron-ore price.
The company said the redesign was aimed at maximising cash generation during the period of low iron-ore prices, by idling the higher-cost Southern Iron operation and optimising the lower-cost Middleback Ranges operation to deliver about nine-million tonnes a year of iron-ore.