Impala Platinum’s profit may drop more than 20%

Impala Platinum, the world’s second-largest producer of the metal, said annual earnings will drop by at least a fifth after a five-month strike in South Africa disrupted mining.

Earnings per share excluding one-time items probably declined more than 20 percent in the year through June from R3.30 a year earlier, Johannesburg-based Impala said in a statement today.

“A key contributor to the decline” was “the five-month strike at Impala Rustenburg,” the company said.

The walkout by more than 70 000 miners at Impala, Anglo American Platinum and Lonmin cost the companies about R24 billion in lost output and workers R10.6 billion in wages by the time it ended on June 24.

The strike pushed the economy into contraction in the first three months of this year as mining output plunged. South Africa accounts for more than two-thirds of mined production of the metal.

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