UK-based miner Anglo American forecasts a -20% year-on-year decrease in both headline and basic first-half earnings from its Kumba iron ore project in South Africa. This is mainly due to “the significant decrease in export iron ore prices during the period”, according to a company statement seen by Kallanish.

Kumba’s headline earnings and basic earnings for the corresponding period of 2014 were ZAR 6.505 billion ($545 million) and ZAR 6.511 billion respectively, the company says.

Basic earnings per share and headline earnings per share are also expected to decline by -20% y-o-y each in H1 from ZAR 20.30 and ZAR 20.28 in H1 2014, respectively, the miner adds.

Anglo American will release Kumba’s H1 results on 21 July.

The company kept unchanged its full-year production guidance for Kumba at 47-48 million tonnes of iron ore, upon reporting a 7% y-o-y rise in output from the project to 12.2mt in the first quarter. Export sales from Kumba grew 22% on-year to 11.5mt in Q1 (see Kallanish 23 April).