South Africa's mining production for September decreased 1.8% year-on-year, Statistics South Africa announced on Thursday, with gold production falling by a fifth.
Gold production for September 2018 was down 19% when compared to September 2017. This contributed -3.1 percentage points to SA's overall production decrease of -1.8%. Gold sales, meanwhile, fell by half.
The SA gold sector has been experiencing a tough year. In mid-October Stats SA announced that year-on-year gold production for August had fallen by 15.5%. Production fell by 15% year-on-year on July.
The largest positive contributor to mining production for September was in the Platinum Group Metals, which increased by 7.2% over September 2017. This contributed 1.7 percentage points to overall production.
Gold also negatively impacted mineral sales, which were down 3.6% year-on-year in September. Gold sales declined by 53.9%.
The most important positive contributor to mineral sales was in Platinum Group Metals, with sales up 19%. This was followed by coal, with sales rising by 10.5%, and manganese ore, with sales up 25.1%.
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