Developments in the mining industry have been particularly newsworthy of late. Wage negotiations and strike action, restructuring and retrenchments, costs of production and the impact of a stronger rand on sales that are dollar-delineated have all received their share of attention over the past few months.
It is against this backdrop that the latest monthly release of data on production and sales in the mining industry was published by Statistics SA and the minerals and energy department on Tuesday.
The release of information as at the end of June 2005 follows a regular format, in which reporting is separated into gold and non-gold minerals.
Annual estimates are presented for the previous 12 months to the end of the period as well as for the previous four quarters, and shorter-term seasonally adjusted estimates are presented for the past two months and the past two quarters.
Non-gold minerals are further separated into various divisions: iron ore, copper, manganese ore, chromium, nickel, platinum group metals (platinum, iridium, osmiridium, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium and osmium), other metallic minerals, diamonds, coal, building materials and other non-metallic metals.
According to the latest data, the total physical volume of mining production for the second quarter of 2005, after seasonal adjustment, decreased by 0.1 percent from the first quarter.
This decrease was due to a seasonally adjusted decrease of 4.6 percent in gold production during the second quarter compared with the first quarter.
However, non-gold minerals reflected an increase of 0.7 percent during the second quarter compared with the first quarter.
The increase in the production of non-gold minerals was mainly due to a 1 percent increase in the production of platinum group metals and a 0.7 percent rise in coal output.
Iron ore 3.
Manganese ore -6.
Platinum group metals 3.
Other metallic minerals 8.
Building materials 2.
Other non-metallic minerals -10.
In summary, using an index with volume in 2000 equal to 100, the physical volume of gold production declined by 4.6 percent between the first and second quarters of the year, while the production of non-gold minerals increased by 0.7 percent.
Mineral sales for the three months to May 2005, on the other hand, increased from the preceding three months and from the same quarter a year earlier.
The seasonally adjusted value of mineral sales at current prices for the quarter to May 2005 reflected an increase of 16.7 percent from the previous quarter.
Furthermore, the actual value of mineral sales at current prices for the three months to May 2005 increased by 11.6 percent from the three months to May 2004.
This 16.7 percent increase in the seasonally adjusted value of mineral sales for the three months to May 2005 compared with the previous three months can be attributed to an increase of 21.4 percent (R1.273 billion) in gold sales and a 15.5 percent (R3.683 billion) increase in sales of non-gold minerals.
May 2004, mineral sales at current prices increased by 11.6 percent.
The major contributors were coal (+4.8 percent or +R1.464 billion) and other non-metallic minerals (+4.3 percent or +R1.321 billion). However, this increase was counteracted by a decrease in gold sales (-1.4 percent or -R437 million). The latest release on production and sales in the mining industry paints a complex and changing picture.
Performance in the different mining sectors varies considerably, and the relationship between physical production and the value of sales is mediated by fluctuations in the rand-dollar exchange rate and the price of the commodity.
This nuanced profile becomes even more varied, depending on whether change is being measured by an annual comparison (June 2004 with June 2005), a comparison between quarters (April to June 2004 with April to June 2005), over the last quarter (January to March 2005 with April to June 2005), or over the last month (May 2005 with June 2005).