Price-cost pinch dulls last lustre of South Africa’s gold

A hand drill lying in the hillside tunnel of a 19th-century South African gold mine testifies to the back-breaking labour by black miners that built what was once the world’s biggest bullion industry.

But even with basic tools and cheap labour, costs overran returns at the Kromdraai gold mine north of Johannesburg, which listed in London in 1893 and closed in 1914.

via Business feed http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/1277899/price-cost-pinch-dulls-last-lustre-south-africas-gold