Power cuts in South Africa have led to production falling by up to one third for some of Anglo American’s key commodities. South Africa’s electricity generator has been struggling all year and had previously warned the big mining companies that they must reduce production or face power cuts.

Consequently, Anglo American has seen Palladium production fall by 25% and Platinum production by 24%. Fortunately for Anglo, their non-South African operations have seen increases in output, particularly iron ore which was up 7%. The share price ended up 20 points yesterday, finishing the day at 3269p

The FTSE 100 ended the week below the psychological 5,500 level at 5,495.2, down 50.4 points on Friday, although this was above the early afternoon lows.

Falls in crude and gold prices meant that the oil and mining stocks lead the charge downwards. In the oil sector, Cairn Energy slipped 178p to 2,535p and BP was off 15.5p at 496p. As for the miners, share prices for all the big players fell. Anglo American was down 236p to 2,673p, Vedanta was down 108p to 1,902p, Rio Tinto was down 270p to 4,800p and BHP Billiton ended 80p lower at 1,361p. (more…)