HARMONY GOLD MINING COMPANY LIMITED – Harmony meets its annual production forecast; keep “Mining with a purpose” – SENS

                            
Harmony meets its annual production guidance; continues to “Mine with Purpose”
Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited
Registration number 1950/038232/06
Incorporated in the Republic of South Africa
ISIN: ZAE000015228
JSE share code: HAR
(“Harmony” and/or “the Company”)
Harmony meets its annual production guidance; continues to “Mine with Purpose”
Johannesburg, Tuesday, 12 July 2022. Peter Steenkamp, chief executive officer
of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited (“Harmony” and/or “the Company),
reflects on the Company’s past financial year, which ended on 30 June 2022
(“FY22”).
“FY22 has been a year in which Harmony has again shown its ability to turn
headwinds into opportunities. Not only did we meet our annual production
guidance, but we took a bold step forward on our decarbonisation journey. We
finished this financial year on the front foot, confident and with good
momentum. Our brownfield and greenfield pipeline, alongside the renewable
energy projects will ensure continued value creation for our shareholders and
stakeholders.”
Safety and health
As we reflect on the past 12 months, it is encouraging how all Harmonites
have embraced a culture of safety across all operations. Our cultural
transformation journey, called Thibakotsi, continues throughout Harmony. We
have integrated this humanistic approach with the various systemic controls
already in place (such as the optical character recognition system, our work
note tool, the Syncromine planning and information coupling software or the
missing person’s locator), to ensure not only high-quality data and controls
are at our disposal, but that we have the right safety culture throughout the
Company. Achieving our goal of zero harm requires that every employee avoids
complacency and takes a proactive approach to risk. Doing so will result in
changing the hearts, actions and minds of all our employees.
We have achieved some extraordinary safety milestones as a company and indeed
as an industry. Traditional high-risk agencies such as falls of ground and
rail-bound equipment both demonstrated significant improvements. We are seeing
an increase in white flag (accident-free) days and, for the first time in our
history, had a loss-of-life-free January and February this calendar year. We
have also seen our lost time injury frequency rate (“LTIFR”) trend below six
per 1 million shifts for three consecutive quarters. Our safety journey,
however, requires each one of us to remain vigilant and alert to our
surroundings while not being afraid to exercise our right to refuse entry to
a place of work if deemed unsafe.
Despite our progress, we have only been on our journey to embed a proactive
safety culture for a short while. A tragic reminder that more needs to be
done was having 13 of our colleagues lose their lives during the course of
FY22. Loss-of-life prevention in the workplace remains our foremost priority
and each such loss weighs heavily on our shoulders. Each person in Harmony is
required to be a leader in safety. It is up to each of us to influence one
another and change our behaviour to avoid further tragedy and ensure no further
lives are lost. I continue to believe that it is possible to conclude a year
without any incidents.
Harmony’s five values are Safety, Accountability, Honesty, Connectedness and
Achievement. We encourage all our employees to adopt these values, not only
in the workplace but also in their everyday life. Arriving at work engaged,
energized and with a duty to care for yourself and those around you will
ensure we reach our goal of zero loss of life.
Employee health is fundamental to Harmony as we care for and empathise with
our people and host communities. As we exit the Covid-19 pandemic, we have a
duty to ensure the continued health and well-being of our people. Over 85% of
our employees voluntarily received a double Covid-19 vaccination and we
encourage everyone to get the booster, particularly those at higher risk. In
addition, other diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and silicosis continue
to receive the full attention of our medical team to ensure a healthy
workforce.
A quality and diversified gold equity story
Harmony’s risk-based approach to creating a sustainable company through
responsible stewardship, operational excellence, value-accretive acquisitions
and capital allocation is aimed at creating returns in the medium to long
term. We have improved the quality of our portfolio and diversified our
revenues across three key areas, namely:
  –   South Africa underground assets
–   South Africa surface (low risk, high margin, long-life) assets, and
–   International (Papua New Guinea) operations
Our low-risk South African surface retreatment business continues to be a
meaningful contributor to production and cash flow. With the necessary
regulatory approvals in hand, we are also able to proceed with the Kareerand
tailings expansion project at Mine Waste Solutions in the Vaal River area.
The South African underground assets have performed well amidst tough
operating conditions. We are in the process of finalising our operational
plans for financial year 2023. Capital allocation aimed at creating strong
returns remain key. This includes weighing up investing in lower risk assets
versus spending capital on mines and/or projects that we do not believe will
be able to realise meaningful returns in the current economic environment.
We will give a comprehensive update on our capital expenditure plans on the
30th of August 2022 as part of the release of our FY22 financial results. We
continue to manage our costs aggressively while our other key brownfield
projects are progressing as planned.
In Papua New Guinea (“PNG”), our Hidden Valley mine resumed full production
after the overland belt failure in January 2022. This strategically important
asset performed well in the fourth quarter, with good prospects for the new
financial year. We continue to progress the Special Mining Lease for the Tier
1 copper-gold Wafi-Golpu project. The negotiating team for the Wafi-Golpu
Joint Venture continues to engage with the PNG State Negotiating Team and we
hope to reach an agreement soon.
I commend all our hard-working and dedicated employees across the globe for
helping us achieve our production targets.
Bidding farewell to Bambanani – a stalwart in South African mining
At our interim results earlier this year, Harmony announced that it has taken
the decision to close the Bambanani mine near Welkom in the Free State at the
end of FY22. This mine, established over 50 years ago, has been an excellent
example of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) in action, which
translated into value for all involved. Harmony extended the life of mine by
over 20 years, thereby maintaining jobs and distributing wealth to the
surrounding communities. We have illustrated our commitment to safety by
taking the decision to close this mine due to increased seismic activity. .
I again reiterate that safety will always take precedent over production at
Harmony.
The highly skilled Bambanani crews will be deployed within Harmony, thereby
retaining jobs and skills. I would like to extend my gratitude to all those
involved – both past and present – for their contribution to the success of
Bambanani over so many years.
Delivering high impact and greener gold through embedded ESG factors
As the world comes to grips with rising inflation, the aftermath of the global
Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine, it is important to emphasise
the vital role we play in maintaining the well-being of those (directly and
indirectly) involved with Harmony. Consideration for all aspects of ESG must
happen in unison and that is exactly how we think about ESG in Harmony.
Effective capital allocation is about determining what will deliver the most
balanced and sustainable outcome for all stakeholders. We are therefore
delighted that Phase 1 of our renewable energy programme is underway. To
advance our decarbonisation aspirations, we have secured a R1.5 billion green
loan linked to sustainable key performance indicators. These funds are ring-
fenced and the proceeds of the loan will be for the construction of Phase 2
of our renewable energy rollout. Not only will these initiatives contribute
toward our goal of being net carbon-zero by 2045, they will also de-risk our
operations and improve margins.
Achieving our annual production guidance
Throughout FY22, we faced multiple hurdles. It was through our phenomenal
display of grit and perseverance that we delivered on our strategic pillar of
Operational Excellence and achieved our annual total production guidance of
between 1 480 000 and 1 560 000 ounces.
In conclusion
The solid platform we have built throughout FY22 has placed Harmony in a
strong position to deliver operationally, creating further value for all our
stakeholders. Our de-risked and diversified portfolio continues to perform
well while the various business improvement initiatives and capital projects
have positioned Harmony well for the year ahead.
Thank you to all our shareholders and stakeholders for Harmony supporting us
and enabling Harmony to achieve its goals. Harmony is more than just mining.
We are in the business of converting resources into value, which extends to
our shareholders and, indeed, all our other stakeholders.
We have a duty to keep sustainability at the centre of all strategic decisions.
This means delivering meaningful returns to our shareholders while at the same
time effecting positive change and maintaining the trust of all of our
stakeholders. We have a duty to keep our employees safe while cultivating
talent and developing the skills required for the future. We have a duty to
extract, preserve and look after the environment, leaving our children a
cleaner, healthier planet. All of this can be summarised in the three words
we at Harmony use consistently as part of our identity: Mining with Purpose.
Ends.
For more details contact:
Jared Coetzer
Head of Investor Relations
+27 (0)82 746 4120
Johannesburg, South Africa
12 July 2022
Sponsor:
J.P. Morgan Equities South Africa Proprietary Limited
Date: 12-07-2022 08:07:00
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