JOHANNESBURG, May 5 (Reuters) - South African bullion producer Harmony Gold HARJ.J said on Tuesday it had swung back into quarterly profit despite a fall in production as it benefited from a smaller foreign-exchange loss on a U.S. denominated loan.

The company also cashed in on a higher rand/gold price which resulted from a weakening of the domestic currency.

Harmony said its headline earnings per share for the three months to the end of March were 12 cents after a loss in the previous quarter of 21 cents.

Gold production fell 12 percent in the quarter to 8,368 kg because of a number of operational incidents including an accident at its Doornkop mine in February which killed nine workers and flooding at its Joel operation.

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura)

((Edward.Stoddard@thomsonreuters.com)(+27 11 775 3160)(Reuters Messaging: edward.stoddard.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: HARMONY GOLD MNG/