Star 2021-07-07

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za ANGLOGOLD Ashanti yesterday shot up 3.5 percent in intra-day trade after the miner named Alberto Calderon as its new chief executive. Calderon is a seasoned mining executive who served as chief executive at Australian-based commercial explosives maker Orica from 2015 until he stepped down in February this year. He was previously a senior executive at BHP, the global mining and metals giant, and was also chief executive of Colombia’s Cerrejón Coal Company. AngloGold said Calderon would assume the position in September. AngloGold’s chairperson, Maria Ramos, said the appointment followed a comprehensive global search in which it considered several excellent candidates. “We are confident that, in Alberto, we have the right person to lead this company forward and realise its outstanding potential, drawing on his huge leadership…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za THE OIL PRICE surged to a three-year high yesterday, breaching the $77.50-mark (R1 104) per barrel as another price war erupted among oil-producing countries. The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) meeting to get a unanimous deal on output increase for 2021 and 2022 was postponed indefinitely once again on Monday. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) blocked a deal to ramp up output by two of the world’s largest oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia. The deal would see an output increase of 2 million barrels per day in the second half of the year, but the UAE said the extension was conditional on revising its baseline productions. However, Iraq backed the current agreement with Opec countries, saying it did not want to see…

Aishah Cassiem aishah.cassiem@inl VITOL has declared a force majeure to end operations at Sunrise Energy’s import terminal at Saldanha in the Western Cape as a result of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) shortages. Vitol said in a letter to its customers on June 28 that “it is with great regret that, due to unfavourable weather conditions in the port of Saldanha and at the MBM (multibuoy mooring system), our vessels that are scheduled to replenish stock at the import terminal have been delayed and that we were unable to replenish on LPG stock in tank at the facility.” Vitol’s Mariska de Jongh said the development forced the company to declare a force majeure since performances of the contract had been greatly affected by the weather conditions. Last August, Sunrise Energy’s facility…

Sita says it will recommend barring IT group from doing business with the public sector Sandile Mchunu sandile.mchunu@inl.co.za EOH HOLDINGS plummeted more than 15 percent during intra-trade on the JSE yesterday before recovering to close 4.60 percent lower at R6.85 after the technology services provider received information from the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) that it would recommend its blacklisting from doing business with the state. Sita said on Monday that it would recommend that the National Treasury bars EOH from doing business with the public sector. The group, however, vowed to fight the blacklisting as it maintained that it had followed all the correct procedures in dealing with the alleged corruption scandal that was uncovered in the company in 2019. EOH said it was surprised to receive a…

RECENTLY published economic data indicates that the economy finally has some green shoots. The latest gross domestic product (GDP) figures reveal that the economy grew 4.6 percent in the first quarter of this year on an annualised basis, better even than the South African Reserve Bank’s upgraded forecast of 4.2 percent. However, it is important to remember that this growth is off the back of a 7 percent retraction last year. High commodity prices for platinum group metals and iron ore have helped South Africa’s current account surplus, while dollar weakness has helped to strengthen the rand. Even though the agricultural sector contracted 3.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted, annualised quarter-on-quarter rate basis, this is expected to be only a temporary setback. The sector expects one…

Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za SHORT-TERM INSURERS (STIs) have been accused of making extraordinary profits out of the Covid-19 lockdown by maintaining premiums at pre- pandemic levels, getting reinsurers to pick up the tab and stalling on insurance payouts, especially to the hospitality and tourism sectors at the expense of crumbling businesses in the sector. According to research by public loss adjuster Insurance Claims Africa (ICA), which is pursuing at least 850 claims by businesses, so dire is the situation that recovery methods are looking at introducing legislation that will enable litigants to claim more for damages incurred from delays in payouts than the amount a client is covered for to mitigate the damage wrought by delays. ICA said STIs increased unappropriated profits by more than 20 percent to a…