UNDERGROUND

Anglo aims to continue on its performance improvement trajectory

ANGLO American wants to make another US$3-4 billion in earnings by 2022 through improving operational performance and innovation.

 Anglo American's Moranbah North mine in Queensland.

Anglo American's Moranbah North mine in Queensland.

The company - which owns the Moranbah and Grosvenor metallurgical coal mines in Queensland - had already produced 12% more product from half the number of assets it had in 2012, according to Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani.

"The implementation of our operating model, with our focus on efficiency and productivity improvements, continues to deliver significant safety, environmental and financial benefits," he said.

"Our productivity per employee has more than doubled [since 2012], supporting a 12 percentage point increase in mining margin."

Cutifani said looking forward, Anglo American still believed there was significant further improvement.

"By 2022, we are targeting an additional $3-$4 billion annual underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation improvement, before inflation, relative to 2017," he said.

"We are starting to see this benefit come through in the numbers, including by meeting and then surpassing industry best-practice operational performance across our business; volume growth from existing and new operations; and the deployment of our FutureSmart Mining technologies, digitalisation and sustainability.

"It is this approach that is beginning to transform how we mine, process and market our products, providing ongoing step-changes in our performance."

Anglo American said its metallurgical coal continued to be in demand in Asia.

"More stringent environmental and safety regulations in China have led to a number of domestic coal mine closures and a requirement for steel producers to run cleaner, larger and more efficient blast furnaces, resulting in increased demand and prices for high quality coking coal, such as that produced by our Australian mines," it said.

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