Graham Kerr

EVEN though South32 posted a loss for the 2024 financial year, owing to hefty write-downs on alumina and nickel, Graham Kerr drew much encouragement from the group’s strategic direction. South32 wants to occupy the mid-tier space in a mining sector besotted with consolidation. Apart from creating a niche for South32, Kerr also thinks M&A would suit his company’s opportunist interest in buying the quality ‘splinter assets’ deal-making often leaves behind.  Take, for instance, the possible sale of Anglo’s stake in their manganese joint venture in South Africa which shot the lights out last year, yielding record production despite logistical challenges.

Kerr has been a bear on South Africa for a while but he claims to be heartened by the country’s Government of National Unity. He also noted that the new leadership at South Africa’s two worst-performing state-owned entities, Eskom and Transnet, had brought positive change and inspired investor confidence. But political ructions are never far away. South32’s operations at the Mozal aluminium smelter in Mozambique were interrupted as part of nationwide protests in the final quarter of 2024 amid claims of vote-rigging by President Daniel Chapo’s Frelimo, which was returned to power. South32 subsequently withdrew Mozal’s production guidance. 

Further afield, the group’s Hermosa project in Arizona in the US received a $166m boost from the US Department of Energy, which it plans to allocate towards the building of a manganese production facility. South32 believes Hermosa has the potential to become a noteworthy producer of metals that are critical for green energy transition.