The impact of the South African Covid-19 lockdown on the Afrimat group was dampened by the partial reopening of its Demaneng iron-ore mine and certain industrial minerals operations early in the lockdown period, the company reports.
It says the reopening had been undertaken while taking the utmost care to ensure the safety and wellbeing of its employees.
Further, South Africa has also moved from level 5 to level 4 restrictions from May 1, allowing opencast mines to scale up production from 50% to full output.
All Afrimat mines are opencast mines and it may, therefore, operate at full capacity.
However, owing to the restrictions on certain markets, Afrimat is ramping up operations according to market demand and, therefore, certain Afrimat mines are not operating at full capacity.
Meanwhile, the company says it is satisfied that there is a higher degree of certainty in the financial results for the financial year ended February 29.
Afrimat expects its earnings a share to be between 331.4c and 353.5c, reflecting a year-on-year increase of between 50% and 60%.
Meanwhile, headline earnings a share are expected to be between 337.1c and 360.5c, reflecting a year-on-year increase of between 44% and 54%.
Afrimat expects to release its financial results for the period on May 20.