Anglo American interim earnings fall due to Covid-19

In the six months to the end of June, underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell 39% to $3.4bn while net profit slumped 75% to $471m as the Covid-19 crisis and subsequent lockdowns impacted production in South Africa.

Total revenue slid 54% to $1.2bn and the dividend per share was slashed 55% to 28 cents.

Anglo highlighted continued strong performances from its Minas-Rio iron ore operation in Brazil and the Collahuasi copper operation in Chile, which helped to mitigate an overall decline in production to 11% on a copper equivalent basis as lockdowns took their toll.

It said lockdowns across southern Africa affected production at PGMs, De Beers, Kumba and Thermal Coal, with production also affected by operational issues at Metallurgical Coal and PGMs.

Chief executive Mark Cutifani said: "Looking beyond the near term, we continue to invest in high quality growth. We still expect first production at our world class Quellaveco copper project in Peru in 2022, despite the prolonged slowdown through the national quarantine, reflecting the excellent progress achieved prior to March.

"The trajectory of our portfolio is towards later cycle products, with development of our recently acquired Tier 1 Woodsmith polyhalite fertiliser project continuing to progress well, while in May we set out our plans to exit our remaining South African thermal coal operations."

At 1100 BST, the shares were down 3.3% at 1,907.80p.