Kumba Iron Ore expects 23% profit jump on higher prices and sales volumes

South Africa’s Kumba Iron Ore said on Thursday it expects its full-year profit to increase by as much as 23%, driven by higher mineral prices and sales volumes.

Kumba, a unit of Anglo American, said it expects headline earnings between 13.9 billion rand and 15.33 billion rand ($862.55 million – $951.29 million) for the year ended December 2025, compared with 12.5 billion rand the previous year.

Africa’s top iron ore miner said the increase in earnings was mainly due to a higher average realized free-on-board export iron ore price of $95 per wet metric ton in 2025, from $92 a wet metric ton the year before. Sales volumes increased 2% to 37 million metric tons.

Iron ore market prices were supported by resilient Chinese pig iron production, on the back of strong export demand and stable supply from the major iron ore producers, Kumba said in a trading update.

Kumba said it reduced its on-mine iron ore stockpile to 5.7 million metric tons at the end of December 2025, down from 6.9 million metric tons at the close of the previous year, reflecting improvements in freight rail logistics performance.

Port stock levels rose to 1.8 million metric tons at the end of 2025, from 0.5 million metric tons in December 2024.

The company will release its 2025 financial results on February 19.

($1 = 16.1150 rand)

(By Nelson Banya; Editing by Louise Heavens)