https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Long-serving precious metals consultant Dr David Davis has reached the conclusion, after a comprehensive study, that the demand for platinum group metals (PGMs) is poised to outstrip stagnant supply.
Davis, who has spent several months carrying out a ‘deep dive’ into the future of PGMs for precious metals researchers in Singapore, Australia and the UK, has concluded that demand for the metals will overwhelm the balance in as few as two to three years. Projected platinum production, Davis asserts, has been over-estimated and the global increase in demand underestimated.
His detailed analysis of South Africa’s PGMs mining companies Impala Platinum, Sibanye-Stillwater and Anglo American Platinum points to a potentially severe decline in the next ten years, the upgrades at Nornickel in Russia and the Darwendale project in Zimbabwe notwithstanding.
Above-ground stocks of platinum are also unlikely to come to the supply rescue as China, which holds roughly half of them, is continuing to build its platinum stockpile and is not selling.
Against that backdrop, Davis contends that the sort of market imbalance that sent the prices of palladium and rhodium sky-high, is now poised to do the same in the case of platinum.
For the rest of this article: https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/platinum-group-metals-demand-set-to-overwhelm-supply-balance-davis-2021-01-21