Unfortunately, as in many parts of the world, the pandemic has been accompanied by loss of life. We sadly recently lost two of our colleagues, contractors employed by Tau Mining, and once again, we send our heartfelt condolences to their families and loved ones as well as colleagues that were directly or indirectly touched by their passing.

Still on safety, we recently shared the ICAM findings from Duncan Ngoato’s unfortunate and tragic fatal incident that took place in May, with SAEC leadership and I just want to draw your attention to a number of actions that we have implemented at our Operations. As you are aware, we implemented work stoppages across SAEC Operations to allow our teams to reflect on the incident. We took time to identify and focus on key activities of focus going forward.

We then embarked on re-training all our employees on JSAs, ensuing that our Supervisors are on board with taking quality verifications and risk assessments, and this included our employees and our Contractors as well. We also implemented assessments of our Contractor capability, taking into consideration key work and maintenance activities that include stored energy, making sure that we identify that which needs to be carried out either on or off site. Some of our Contractors who still do not comply with our procedures will not be allowed back into our Operations until such time they are cleared.

Due to the above, we missed the SAEC TRIF target for FY20 of 1.7 with a result of 1.76. The fatality recorded in May detracted us from achieving this as we recognize our inability to send everyone home safely after work. I urge you all to never ignore any of our safety controls across our Operations. We need to ensure that we all return home safely after every shift.  I really want to emphasize the need for us to keep pushing to ensure compliance to both the COVID-19 protocols as well as our safety measures, ensuring that we take our Contractors with on this journey.

On Production, we had a fairly good month from a saleable and waste stripping point of view. Our total saleable production numbers were below forecast and mainly impacted by the reduced saleable volumes at Ifalethu Colliery, mainly due to the two-week safety stoppage in June, following the fatal incident at the end of May.  Both Wolvekrans and Khutala Collieries exceeded their saleable forecast volumes. Total saleable production for Klipspruit was below forecast, which was mainly impacted by insufficient loader capacity affecting the crushed and bypass volumes,

Message from the President

From a Finance perspective, we have just concluded FY20; and as we look forward to the new financial year, I can safely say that we are not out of the headwinds in as far as our financial position goes. As a business, we ought to be mindful of remedial initiatives that are required to return our business to a cash positive position.

We have made a lot of progress to date with the work delivered by project Kimberley, and most recently we announced an in-principle decision to combine Wolvekrans and Ifalethu into a single operation. This process will however require a restructure of our workforce and we have thus far since commenced with a consultative Section 189 process in this regard. The decision to embark on the S189 process at Wolvekrans and Ifalethu was not taken lightly and through this process we will endeavour to minimise the potential impacts on our people and explore all options available to do this.

Project Kimberley is not limited to the current WMC combination only. There are various other cost reduction initiatives running across the business, including initiatives at Klipspruit and Khutala, which are focusing on prime mover efficiency and an independent Baseline Cost Review currently underway at Wolvekrans, Ifalethu and Klipspruit which concludes this month.

We also need to ensure placement of our product, both from a domestic and export market perspective, and also equally important, ensuring cost control from a supply perspective, which we all can improve as we carry out our day to day duties. We need to ensure that we are disciplined with our cost practices in adherence with the relevant processes in place.

I urge you to support your team members by doing everything you can to ensure that their mental and physical wellbeing is taken care of. Let’s continue to reach out and support those that are not well during this time, and equally those that have lost their loved once due to this disease. I wish all our employees that are not well a speedy recovery. Let’s join hands and bring hope to our people; and ensure we come out of this well. Our employee assistance programme, ICAS, is still available to you and your loved ones during this time.

Let’s unite against COVID-19 and stay safe and remember, SAEC Cares.