Pan African Resources (LON:PAF, JSE:PAN) expects its half yearly earnings - the interim results are due 22 February - will beat last year’s comparatives by a significant margin.
This afternoon it told investors that earnings per share (in GBP), for the six months ended 31 December 2010, is expected to have increased by 53 - 63 percent compared with the corresponding period last year. Similarly it said that headline earnings per share is expected to be 41 - 51 percent higher.
The improved performance isn’t likely to catch out investors that have been following Pan African’s impressive growth story. The South African gold company has been getting a lot of attention recently, with its share more than doubling in value on London’s AIM market in the last three months of 2010.
Today’s trading saw PAF add just over 2 percent to its value. Shares were changing hands at 10.5 pence per share - the stock previously surged from 6.5 pence at the end August to hit a new high at 12.5 pence on 31 December 2010.
The junior gold stock is already producing 100,000 ounces of gold a year from Barberton – a group of three mines in South Africa - and it is currently working on increasing output to 125,000 ounces by 2015.
Separately the company is also working to start up the Phoenix project, after it agreed an deal with International Ferro Metals in 2010. Phoenix is being developed on the site of IFM’s Lesedi mine near Rustenburg, South Africa.
The plant will process the tailings from the IFM mine to produce platinum group metals, and achieving margins as high as US$1,100 per ounce. The chrome tailings retreatment plant (CTRP) is expected to begin commissioning towards the end of the year.