Premium-Grade Iron Ore Piles Up at Africa’s Top Producer Amid Rail Constraints
- Stockpiles at Anglo’s Kumba Iron Ore rose by 28% last year
- Company resets production outlook to reflect rail performance
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Anglo American Plc’s South African iron ore unit said rail and port bottlenecks mean stockpiles of the steelmaking ingredient are continuing to build at its mines.
South Africa’s state-owned rail operator Transnet SOC Ltd. is struggling to ship coal and iron ore as its hit by maintenance backlogs, vandalism and a lack of capacity. Kumba Iron Ore Ltd.’s said its stocks surged 28% to 7.8 million tons by the end of December from a year earlier. That cost the company about 10 billion rand ($549 million) in lost sales, mainly in the fourth quarter.