The "nightmare" of South Africa's major gold, platinum and diamond mines shutting down because of power failures became a reality on Friday.
"Tens of millions of rands a day are being lost. It's a nightmare," said T-sec chief economist Mike Schussler.
The JSE gold mining sub-sector closed almost 6% lower on Friday. The move contributed to the gold price rising. The London afternoon fixing was up $12, to $918,25 an ounce.
Chris Hart, an Investment Solution economist, said mining was a key industry for the country.
"From that point of view the [power] cuts seem ... almost a disaster."
The Chamber of Mines earlier announced that several gold and platinum mines had to shut down operations because Eskom could not guarantee power supplies on Friday.
Harmony Gold spokesperson Amelia Soares said the company had only run emergency facilities on Friday.
The company would lose about R60-million from Friday's suspended operations, she said.
Gold Fields spokesperson Willie Jacobsz said the company was losing production of about 7 000 ounces a day.
The impact of power cuts was "very, very dramatic. It is radical ... unprecedented," he said.
AngloGold Ashanti said it had halted mining and gold recovery operations throughout the country.
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