Kenmare cuts 15% of Moma staff as titanium prices stay weak

Kenmare Resources laid off 15% of staff at its Moma mine in northern Mozambique and suspended its final dividend, the company said on 25 March 2026, as a slump in mineral sands shipments and prices drove gross profit down 79%. Around 200 employees at Moma had already been let go in the months beforehand, with a further 20 redundancies planned under the cost-cutting programme.

A heavy impairment

The Dublin-based miner swung into a net loss of $325m for the period, driven primarily by a $301.3m impairment charge against its Moma assets after Kenmare lowered its long-term revenue assumptions amid uncertainty over mineral sands pricing. Moma produces ilmenite — used mainly as a feedstock for titanium dioxide pigment in paints — alongside zircon and rutile, and weak global demand for those products has weighed heavily on the mine's earnings.

A market that has turned against producers

The mineral sands market has been subdued for an extended period, with the outlook, if anything, deteriorating further through 2025 and into 2026. That backdrop forced Kenmare into a familiar mining-industry playbook during a downturn: cutting headcount, halting shareholder returns and writing down asset values to reflect a less optimistic long-term price outlook.

Operational challenges compound the pressure

Beyond weak pricing, Kenmare had also grappled with commissioning issues at its upgraded Wet Concentrator Plant A during 2026, further constraining output at a time when the company could least afford lost production. The combination of soft prices and operational setbacks explains why management felt compelled to act on costs even as it described Moma as a "tier one" long-life asset.

Why it matters

Kenmare is one of the world's largest titanium feedstock producers and a significant employer in Mozambique's Nampula province, making job cuts at Moma a meaningful economic event locally as well as a signal of stress in the global mineral sands market. Investors and the Mozambican government alike will be watching whether the cost-cutting programme stabilises Kenmare's finances without permanently damaging the mine's production capacity once prices eventually recover.

The cuts also illustrate how directly a downturn in global mineral sands demand can translate into job losses in a specific Mozambican province, given how concentrated Kenmare's operations are around the single Moma site.

Sources

• The Irish Times: Kenmare to cut 15% of mine staff and suspend dividend as gross profit plunges, 25 Mar 2026
• The Metalnomist: Kenmare Moma Titanium Minerals Mine Cuts Workforce as Mineral Sands Market Weakens, 01 May 2026

Photo: Moma district in Nampula province, Mozambique, home to Kenmare Resources' titanium minerals mine. MJEHermann, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.