It was largely “as you were” in terms of 2017 production guidance for Anglo American PLC (LON:AAL) after its second quarter output update.
The company reported an 8% increase in copper equivalent production in the second quarter of 2017, compared to the same period of 2016. For the half year as a whole, copper equivalent production increased by 9%.
Full-year production guidance for copper, diamonds, nickel, metallurgical coal and platinum was left unchanged.
Full year production guidance of iron ore from the Kumba unit has been increased to 41- 43mln tonnes (previously 40- 42mln tonnes).
"We have delivered another strong production quarter across most of our businesses,” claimed Mark Cutifani, Anglo’s chief executive officer.
“Through the improvements we have made to our portfolio and the efficiencies we are driving, we continue to unlock the potential of our world class assets. The production ramps at Gahcho Kué, Minas-Rio and Grosvenor are also contributing to these ongoing positive performance trends.
“We have increased the full year production guidance for Kumba Iron Ore and are on track to deliver full year guidance across the rest of our products."
Ben Davis at Liberum said it was a decent set of production results, though there was a miss on realised pricing at Kumba.
“Only change to guidance was a small upgrade of iron ore output from Kumba from 40-42 to 41-42mt; however, on revenues a small miss with realised pricing at Kumba was $71/t vs Liberum est of $77/t,” Davis noted.
“Despite weather impact of cyclone Debbie on rail and port infrastructure, coking coal is still expected to hit guidance as run of mine was not impacted, albeit the bottom end of guidance because of geological issues at Grosvenor. Small amount of belt loosening (as to be expected given the recovery) with exploration and evaluation spend in the quarter up 17%,” he added.
The shares opened 0.2% higher, in line with the FTSE 100, at 1,136p.