Toronto: Anglo Platinum recorded a 161% increase in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to R108.4 billion in 2021 compared with R41.6 billion, a year earlier despite increases in costs and higher wages. It said this, in turn, led to an increase in headline earnings to R79 billion.

Anglo Platinum’s return on capital employed also increased to 183% in 2021 from 72% in 2020.

The company’s balance sheet remained in a strong position, with net cash of R49.1 billion, after paying dividends of R55.7 billion and R34.8 billion in taxes and royalties.

Total platinum group metals (PGMs) production up 13% to 4.3 million ounces compared to 3.8 million ounces, a year earlier with solid production performance from all own-managed operations, despite operating under Covid-19 conditions.

“We achieved record refined production from our processing assets, refining over 5.1 million PGM ounces, supported by a stable ACP performance and a consistent performance across all processing assets,” said Anglo Platinum.

“As a result, we released most of our build-up work-in-progress inventory from 2020 by the year-end.”

It said this performance enabled the company to increase its sales volumes by 82% to just over 5.2 million PGM ounces, despite rebuilding finished-goods inventory to normalised levels in the second half of the year.

Meanwhile, the company said it expects market balances for platinum, palladium and rhodium (3E PGMs) to tighten in 2022.
“Demand will likely improve as automotive demand for PGMs increases on the back of a recovery in light-duty vehicle (LDV) production,” it said.
“Supply is set for a modest increase, primarily due to growth in autocatalyst recycling as more cars are scrapped.”