JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Precious metals miner Sibanye-Stillwater’s announcement that it would start consultations regarding the proposed 5 270 job cuts at its Marikana operations contained no information for the market, Mergence Investment Managers investment analyst Thobela Bixa told Mining Weekly Online on Thursday.

He elaborated that prior to Sibanye acquiring Lonmin, Lonmin had already embarked on a restructuring process that would have resulted in the reduction of about 12 600 jobs over the next three years.

He noted that Lonmin had already reduced its headcount by about 5 944 before the buyout by Sibanye was completed.

“With Sibanye having taken over the Lonmin assets in June, Lonmin’s future is much more stable and certain. As a result, this restructuring of 5 270 jobs by Sibanye saves about 1 386 more jobs than what Lonmin had initially envisaged,” he posited.

“Because the company has been working very closely with the unions on this, the latter has played a strong determining role. The good news is that tens of thousands of important jobs are being saved by keeping the company alive enough to continue mining and hopefully growing,” Mergence Corporate Solutions mining director Peter Major added.

He further pointed out that metal prices were looking better than they have for several years, and that the rand was weakening, with these two factors anticipated to help keep the Marikana operations in production and reduce debt.

He posited that, should metal prices hold up or rise further, and should the rand stay at R15.00 to the dollar, the Marikana mine should start regaining some of its former health.

“Running a mine is a capitalistic endeavour. The more a mine can make a return, the faster it will endeavour to grow – so that it can make more and larger, regular returns.

To do this, it will need to expand and thus hire more people – not fewer. Those retrenched will be first in line to be rehired. 

“A healthy mine will want to grow – and this will require more employees. So, anything to keep the mine alive will be good for labour, the unions, the employees, community and country going forward,” Major concluded.