Global miner Anglo American (LON:AAL) is shedding 4,000 jobs as part of a drive to slash costs at its iron ore mines in South Africa and Brazil.
Anglo's Kumba Iron Ore (KIOJ.J) vowed to streamline operations, cut costs and reduce jobs at its key Sishen mine in South Africa, which is Africa's biggest iron ore mine.
The group also outlined plans to review its production blueprint for Brazil's Minas-Rio mine to cut operating costs, without elaborating.
Minas-Rio has faced delays and higher-than-expected project costs since Anglo bought it for US$5.5bn in two stages in 2007-2008.
Anglo is undertaking the cuts to keep pace with rivals Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT), which have lower-cost iron ore operations.
The three miners and others are all cutting back as slower Chinese demand and an oil supply glut has triggered falls in commodity and crude prices.
In a fourth quarter production update, Anglo said production at Kumba fell 7% to 44.9mln tonnes last year, while output at Minas-Rio rose to 9.2mln tonnes from 0.7 million tonnes.
Annual production of export thermal coal was down 2%, copper was 5% off, nickel dropped 19% and diamonds fell 12%.
But platinum output rose a quarter to 2.3 million ounces as Anglo increased production after industrial action in 2014.
Copper and nickel staged a fourth quarter production comeback, rising 4% and 57% respectively against the same period a year ago.
Some analysts said the figures highlighted some of the higher quality assets owned by Anglo American.
Shore Capital said the quarterly figures were essentially in line with expectations, but added: "We expect fourth quarter and full-year financials to be dire."
Meanwhile, in its own first quarter production update, South African platinum miner Lonmin (LON:LMI) said it was also removing higher-cost production capacity.
The company said the weak platinum group metal (PGM) pricing environment appeared likely to continue, offset by dollar strength.
It kept sales guidance for the full year at about 700,000 platinum ounces and maintained unit cost guidance of about R10,400 per PGM ounce produced, provided there were no material safety stoppages.
Lonmin also retained capital expenditure guidance for the year of around US$132mln.
"Our business plan assumes that a low pricing environment will persist in the short to medium term and we are managing our business on that basis," the group said.
Shares in Anglo American rose 21.25p to 275p and Lonmin's stock fell 1.5p to 56p.