South 32 warns COVID 19 outbreak could hit miner

Australia's South 32 warned on Monday Jan 24 of the possible impact of workforce restrictions due to the coronaviruses outbreak at its flagship Illawarra project in the second half, as it reported a 15 per cent drop in second-quarter coal output.

The miner follows heavyweights BHP Group and Rio Tinto in warning of labour shortages due to the coronaviruses, as Australia faces a surge of Omicron cases.

The miner said that the COVID 19 pandemic continues to affect our operations and supply chains in different ways across our global portfolio.

The implementation of additional COVID 19 workforce restrictions in New South Wales could affect labour availability over the course of June 2022, according to the June 2022 half year. It said it will update its financial year 2022 and financial year 2023 forecast with its half-year results next month, as it maintained its fiscal 2022 metallurgical coal output guidance of 6.3 million tons Mt on Monday.

It cut its annual manganese ore output guidance from Australia by 9 per cent to 3.2 million wet metric tons wmt due to adverse weather conditions and workforce constraints.

The miner's impact on the supply chain, including port congestion and tight global freight conditions, hurt the movement of its stock, particularly for its aluminium smelters in southern Africa.

The production of metallurgical coal, used to make steel, dropped to 1.2 Mt in the three months to December 31 from 1.4 Mt a year ago, while manganese ore output fell 11 per cent to 1.3 million wmt.