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Full ownership and execution of factors that are within management's control are being elevated to the highest possible level by African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) CEO Phillip Tobias.

ARM has sharpened its pencil in as far as things that are within its control are concerned and success is being achieved tackling costs, increasing volumes, and managing grades.

"Your cost curve will really determine how far you are going to run so we want to be in the first quartile and it will come through hard work and we really want to commend our workforce, and our leadership as well, for heeding the call.

"When the clarion call was made, they really heeded it, and we've seen some improvement. It's not over. It's a continuous improvement. It's like sweeping water uphill, so it's a daily thing.

"We need to continue to look for those opportunities and any slight improvement in cost, volume and grade can be seen on the bottom line," Tobias emphasised in an interview with Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video

While ARM Ferrous reported 12% higher headline earnings, ARM Platinum reported a loss owing to the sharp fall of platinum group metals (PGMs), and ARM Coal was 85% down compared with the corresponding period of last year.

It was the iron-ore division that made the big contribution earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda).

But major effort is being made to improve what is under management control at the PGM operations.

"I'm pleased to say that there has been a 4% increase on the Modikwa mining grade and we've also seen some marginal improvement on the Two Rivers mining grade although we are still mining the split reef.

"We have, to a certain extent, been able to optimise our cut and we are quite pleased with that because it's an ongoing thing because that is basically the nature of the beast.

"We are now on the split reef area. The two operations Modikwa and Two Rivers have respectively shown an improvement of 2% and 3% year-on-year, which is quite pleasing," said Tobias.

Making sure that an enabling environment is created for ARM employees and is simplifying things for employees to perform to the best of their ability is also an ongoing priority.

"Global competitiveness is what is going to differentiate us, especially when there's a price squeeze.

Mining Weekly: In circumstances like the present, how beneficial is ARM's diversified portfolio of mining assets?

Tobias: If you look at our results, you'd see that even from the Ebitda segment that iron-ore delivered about 80% of that. Previously, it was almost an equal distribution between iron-ore and the PGMs business but with PGMs falling to about 8%, the outcome was that iron-ore took a big chunk of that split and we are quite grateful that it was not only price related but there was an improvement in terms of volume of sales and production. We saw a 1% improvement on that and the cost as well. If you look at the unit cost on the iron-ore side with Khumani, it was just a 3% increase compared with the corresponding period. That's quite helpful considering that we've seen a shortfall of approximately 40% in the PGMs basket price. You do need the cushion that diversification provides because mining is cyclical.

To what extent is ARM rationalising capital expenditure?

As we announced in our previous results, we've concluded capital expenditure on Black Rock, so now the focus is more on the PGMs business. What is very important is that in as much as the Two Rivers Platinum Merensky capital project of 200 000 t has been approved, we need to continue to make sure that we really focus on differentiating between the needs and the wants. The wants are what we can park and the business will still basically continue, and then, at the right time, when the price is right, you can bring in the wants. That is the rationalisation that is taking place. Also, regarding Bokoni, the bo...