Harmony’s broken conveyor belt out

HARMONY Gold said last Thursday that a broken conveyer belt at its Hidden Valley mine, Morobe, would remain out of commission for the rest of this quarter, at least.
Chief executive Graham Briggs said at a results presentation the belt would be “out of production the rest of this quarter”, adding he was hopeful it would come on line in the next quarter.
Hidden Valley, which officially opened in September last year, is expected to produce 250,000 ounces of gold per year and 4 million ounces of silver, reported by Bloomberg news online last week.
Briggs said in a presentation in Johannesburg last week that reported production in the first nine months of the fiscal year dropped 10 % from a year earlier and forecast lower annual output than planned.
“The production guidance we gave and what we’ve achieved is disappointing,” Briggs said.
The Johannesburg-based company’s new estimate is lower than the range of 1.45 million to 1.5 million ounces of gold it forecast in February, Briggs said in Johannesburg, without being specific.
Harmony aimed for 2 million ounces for 2013.