Afrimat is ramping up operations according to market demand but is not operating at full capacity, despite being permitted to do so, because of restrictions on certain markets, the South African iron ore miner says.

The impact of the national Covid-19 lockdown on the group was dampened by the partial re-opening of Demaneng iron ore mine and certain industrial minerals operations early in the lockdown period, the firm adds. From 1 May South Africa permitted open-cast mining to scale up from a baseline of 50% to full employment. Afrimat’s mines are all open-cast.

Afrimat expects headline earnings per share for the fiscal year through February 2020 (FY20) to be between ZAR 0.34 and ZAR 0.36 ($0.02) per share, an increase of between 44% and 54% on-year.

Afrimat continued to mine iron ore during South Africa’s Covid-19-induced lockdown and had access to rail and port logistics infrastructure to maintain exports (see Kallanish passim). in the first half of FY20 iron ore sales reached 436,631 tonnes.