Owners at African Rainbow Minerals said a decision has already be taken to no longer produce anything from the mine.
South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe has announced the closure of his Nkomati nickel mine in Mpumalanga, which will in few months see thousands of workers losing employment.
His African Rainbow Minerals said starting from September 2020 the mine will go on a total closure due to difficulties in making profits.
In a statement last Friday 30 August 2019 the group said Nkomati suffered a headline loss of R315 million between the beginning of the year to June 2019.
It was ballooning input costs that had severely affected the running of Nkomati, owners at African Rainbow Mineral said.
They say that they suffered an impairement loss of R1.1bn on the Nkomati assets, which resulted in decreased metal output and led to the mine being unable to generate enough money to sustain itself.
“An agreement was reached by the joint venture partners to scale down production at the loss-making Nkomati mine,” the company said.
The mine will be placed “on care and maintenance from September 2020 in preparation for closure,” the company said last Friday.
(edited by ZK)
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