Archive | Platinum Group Metals

https://www.bloomberg.com/

South African mining executives, investors and officials gather in the nation’s economic hub for the Joburg Indaba conference, a week after Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe published the government’s new Mining Charter.

It’s been a tough couple of years for South African mining, from regulatory uncertainty and legal fights with the government, to thousands of job cuts announced across the industry. National gold production has declined for 10 straight months.

Here are the latest developments, updated throughout the day. (Time-stamps are local time in Johannesburg.)

Platinum Mea Culpa (5 p.m.)

Platinum miners hurt themselves over the past decade by failing to notice and respond quickly enough to dwindling demand for the metal, according to the head of the world’s top producer. Continue Reading →

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Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. said its annual loss will widen as the world’s second-largest producer of the metal takes a 9.7 billion-rand ($660 million) writedown, mostly on its struggling Rustenburg mining complex.

Implats, as the company is known, is shrinking the number of shafts at Rustenburg and said earlier this month it may cut about 13,000 jobs as focus shifts to newer, lower-cost mines.

The company has struggled to reduce expenses at Rustenburg and profit margins in the platinum industry have come under added pressure this year after prices for the metal sank to the lowest in a decade. Continue Reading →

https://money.usnews.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Platinum prices tumbled to 10-year lows as the collapse of Turkey’s lira rippled through markets and weakened the currency of top producer South Africa, underlining persistent oversupply of the autocatalyst metal.

Platinum has been caught in a broad sell-off as investors rush to the safety of the dollar, pushing it higher and making dollar-priced metals more expensive for buyers using other currencies.

But platinum, used mainly in emissions-reducing catalytic converters for vehicles and in jewelry, has fallen further than its precious metal peers. Continue Reading →

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s most expensive precious metal is set to get even pricier as a mining retreat in South Africa threatens a supply shortage.

Rhodium — a byproduct of platinum mining that’s used in the chemical sector and by the auto industry in catalytic converters — has more than trebled in value since the start of 2017. The silver-white element, named after the Greek word for rose, could go even higher as output is squeezed by the woes facing South Africa’s platinum industry.

With no primary mines for rhodium, supply will be cut as Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. and Lonmin Plc shut unprofitable shafts to weather the lower platinum prices brought by the switch from diesel cars. Continue Reading →

https://uk.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Miner Impala Platinum (IMPJ.J) will slash about a third of its workforce over two years in one of the biggest rounds of job cuts by one mining company in living memory in South Africa as the platinum industry faces a day of reckoning.

The number of platinum miners employed in South Africa, the world’s largest producer of the precious metal, has fallen from a peak of almost 200,000 in 2008 to 175,000 in the face of depressed prices and soaring costs, fuelling labour and social unrest.

Job cuts are politically sensitive in the country and Mines Minister Gwede Mantashe, a gruff former trade unionist, called Implats’ announcement on Thursday “a clear example of a company that is careless…Their reckless actions add injury to insult”. Continue Reading →

https://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg) — Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. is facing some tough choices as the South African miner works to stem losses at aging shafts amid slumping prices for the metal.

The world’s second-largest producer has already cut 2,500 jobs in the year through June and says there may be more to come. Only three of the 10 shafts at its sprawling Rustenburg mining complex were making money as of March. Things have only gotten worse since then, with platinum prices dropping another 9 percent and hitting a nine-year low last week.

Implats, as the company is known, will announce the results of a strategic review of Rustenburg in September, said spokesman Johan Theron. The challenges facing the industry mean the miner can’t discount the possibility of more job losses, he said. The company employs about 31,000 people at its Rustenburg operations. Continue Reading →

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/

Analysts pointed out that streaming was often a sign of a company in trouble

Debt-laden Sibanye-Stillwater will put in place a structure to generate cash within the next eight weeks, to address investors’ concern about its debt and a potential rights issue that has halved the company’s share price so far this year.

Sibanye’s net debt stands at about R23bn and analysts have flagged concern about the ratio of net debt to adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda), which was 2.4 times at the end of March.

That is below the covenant requirement of less than 3.5 times for the remainder of this year and 2.5 times thereafter. Continue Reading →