Mining production increased by 22% year-on-year in October, largely on the back of a substantial 194.4% lift in copper production and a 74.4% improvement in gold output, Statistics South Africa revealed in its preliminary Mining Production and Sales release on Tuesday.

Also driving overall mining output for the month were improvements in the production of chromium ore, which increased by 43%, as well as iron-ore and manganese ore, which increased by 38.2% and 36.7% respectively.

The main contributors to the 22% increase were gold, which contributed eight percentage points, iron-ore, which contributed 5.6 percentage points and platinum-group metals (PGMs), which contributed 3.9 percentage points. Coal and other nonmetallic minerals were the only negative contributors, contributing -0.9 and -0.6 percentage points respectively.

Seasonally adjusted mining production increased by 6.5% in October compared with month-on-month changes of -3.9% in September and -1.7% in August.

Meanwhile, mineral sales increased by 8.6% year-on-year in September, with the highest positive growth rates recorded for copper at 121.1% and chromium ore at 55.2%.

The major contributors to the 8.6% increase were PGMs, contributing 6.1 percentage points, iron-ore, contributing 3.8 percentage points and coal, contributing 2.4 percentage points. Overall mineral sales were negatively impacted by gold sales, which contracted by 8.2 percentage points.

Seasonally adjusted mineral sales at current prices decreased by 7.8% in September compared with August, which followed month-on-month changes of 8% in August and 2.4% in July.

In contrast, seasonally adjusted mineral sales at current prices increased by 4.5% in the third quarter of 2013 compared with the previous quarter, which was largely driven by the sales value of iron-ore, contributing 3.7 percentage points, and PGMs, contributing three percentage points.