Issued by Harmony Gold
Mining Company Limited
31 March 2010
For more details contact:
Hannes Meyer
Financial Director
on +27 (0)82 444 7435
or
Esha Brijmohan
Investor Relations Officer
on +27 (0)82 759 1775
Corporate Office:
Randfontein Office Park
P O Box 2
Randfontein
South Africa 1760
T +27 (11) 411 2000
www.harmony.co.za
JSE: HAR
NYSE: HMY
NASDAQ: HMY
ISIN No.: ZAE000015228
Production update for third quarter FY2010
Continued focus on improvement, despite challenges
Johannesburg. Wednesday 31 March 2010.
Harmony Gold Mining Company
Limited (Harmony) announces that the past quarter saw continued focus on safety
and disciplined mining, but was not without its challenges.
Based on preliminary estimates, gold production for the quarter decreased between
1,000kg and 1,300kg compared with the previous quarter.
Loss-making shafts that were closed during the quarter resulted in a reduction of
approximately 620kg of gold, as compared with the previous quarter. Restructuring
costs in respect of these closures amount to approximately R120 million. Going
forward, only care and maintenance costs for the closed shafts will be incurred.
“Longer term the effect of this decision will be shown to have been the correct one,
lowering the cash costs and eliminating losses, however, the first 3 to 6 months of
these decisions are always painful”, said Harmony’s Chief Executive Officer, Graham
Briggs.
The remaining loss in kilograms was from South African operations, of which the
main contributing operations to this decrease include Tshepong, Masimong, Joel and
Kusasalethu (previously known as Elandsrand). Tshepong and Masimong had a slow
start-up after the Christmas break. Joel saw lower grades, mainly as a result of the
commissioning of the plant and Kusasalethu faced ore-pass problems during the
quarter, which are being investigated.
Hidden Valley continued its commissioning process, with the silver flotation circuit
being commissioned in the March quarter. As mentioned in the previous quarter, we
expect the Hidden Valley mine and processing plant to reach its original design
capacity and throughput in the June 2010 quarter. The mine’s March quarter results
will be capitalised.
“This has been a difficult quarter. Shortly after having recorded 99 days fatality-free,
a fatal accident occurred at Evander. Slow start ups following the Christmas break
and the closure of shafts resulted in a decrease in forecasted production and
Kusasalethu, in particular, had a disappointing quarter. Our management team is