Kumba Iron Ore profit climbs 18% on higher prices, sales volumes

South Africa’s Kumba Iron Ore on Thursday posted an 18% rise in annual profit on the back of higher mineral prices and stronger sales volumes driven by improved freight rail and port logistics.

Kumba, a unit of Anglo American, said its headline earnings per share increased to 45.97 rand ($2.86) in the year to December 2025 from 38.94 rand in the previous year.

Africa’s top iron ore miner said the rise 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, up from $92 a year before. Sales volumes were up 2% at 37 million tons.

Iron ore market prices were supported by resilient Chinese pig iron production, on the back of strong export demand.

Improved rail performance

Kumba CEO Mpumi Zikalala said the company’s performance had also been boosted by improving logistics, thanks to ongoing collaboration between bulk mineral exporters and South Africa’s state-owned freight rail and port operator Transnet.

The private firms are providing technical assistance to help Transnet maintain its ore export tracks, including the 861 km (535 mile) line which runs from mines in the Northern Cape to Saldanha port in the Western Cape.

“Ore railed to the port rose by 6%, and this was despite derailments that were suffered during the year,” Zikalala said during a results call.

“Rail performance improved to 84% of contracted volumes, which, together with improved equipment availability at the Saldanha Bay Port, resulted in the 2% increase in our sales,” she added.

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

The company declared a final dividend of 15.43 rand per share, compared to 19.90 rand per share in 2024.

($1 = 16.0823 rand)

(By Nelson Banya; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Jan Harvey)