This audio is brought to you by Wearcheck, your condition monitoring specialist.Copper production increasing by 11% as Quellaveco achieved its highest plant throughput rate in Peru, while Collahuasi and El Soldado in Chile benefitting from higher copper grades were among the first-quarter performance aspects that pleased diversified mining company Anglo American in the three months ending March 31."We're driving operational excellence across our assets, focusing on stability and effective cost management as levers to deliver significant value through the cycle," Anglo CE Duncan Wanblad highlighted in a release to Mining Weekly on Tuesday."We're progressing through our asset review to optimise value by simplifying and improving the overall quality of the portfolio," he added.With copper now representing 30% of total production, the business is being set up to deliver and grow into the major demand themes against the backdrop of several organic medium-term copper growth options.Steelmaking coal production also increased by 7%, owing to the performance at the Aquila longwall and Capcoal opencast operations in Australia, the London- and Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company stated in the First Quarter Anglo American Production Report.Anglo diamond mining and marketing company De Beers, the report noted, implemented changes to lower its diamond production for the year by about three-million carats.This, combined with 7% lower production of 834 000 oz from Anglo's platinum group metals (PGMs) operations resulted in flat production for the group overall when compared with the first three months of 2023. The lower PGMs production reflected expected lower volumes from the Kroondal PGMs mine, which is reported as third-party purchase of concentrate from November 2023, and lower production at the underground Amandelbult PGMs mine in Limpopo.Iron-ore production was flattened by the planned logistics-linked decrease to 15.1-milion tonnes at South Africa's Kumba Iron Ore offsetting the 4% production rise at Minas-Rio in Brazil.Full-year diamond production guidance has also been lowered to 26-million carats to 29-million carats, with unit costs revised up to $90/carat.Realised prices were all down except for diamonds. The biggest realised price fall was 61% for rhodium. Other big realised price falls were for palladium, which was 38% down, nickel, which was 37% down, Minas-Rio iron-ore, which was 38% down, the PGMs basket price, which was 30% down.PGM METAL IN CONCENTRATEAnglo's own mined production decreased by 14% to 504 300 oz on the disposal of Kroondal. Excluding Kroondal, production decreased by 6% owing to lower production from Amandelbult and Mototolo. Mogalakwena produced 219 500 oz, which was flat year-on-year.Production at Amandelbult decreased by 16% to 127 100 oz on lower recoveries and plant equipment breakdowns.Production at Mototolo fell 10% to 61 900 oz, caused by mining equipment breakdowns and challenging ground conditions as a section of the mine reaches its end of life.The Unki PGMs mine in Zimbabwe produced 62 800 oz, in line with the same period of last year.The purchase of concentrate increased by 5% to 329 800 oz, reflecting the transition of Kroondal to a 100% third-party purchase of concentrate arrangement. Normalising the comparative period to include 100% of Kroondal, results in a 10% decrease reflecting lower third-party receipts.Refined PGM production was flat at 628 000 oz. In the first quarter of every year, refined production is typically at its lowest, due to the annual stock count and planned maintenance at processing assets.KUMBA IRON OREKumba's quarterly production declined to 9.3-million tonnes, driven by a 12% decrease at Kolomela to 2.7-million tonnes. The operationally stable Sishen iron-ore mine lifted production by 4% to 6.6-million tonnes.Kumba's iron-ore sales fell 12% to 8.4-million tonnes, primarily as a result of equipment reliability challenges at the Saldanha Bay ...