Platinum Group Metals – Page 15

UPDATE 2-South Africa’s AMCU union reaches tentative wage deals with platinum trio – by Ed Stoddard (Reuters U.S. – October 21, 2016)

October 21, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 21 South Africa’s AMCU union has reached wage deals in principle with platinum producers Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin, subject to final approval from its members, the union’s president said on Friday.

This means a strike has almost certainly been averted in South Africa’s platinum sector, which is still recovering from a crippling five-month stoppage led by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) in 2014.

“What our members have been demanding has been secured from the companies,” AMCU President Joseph Mathunjwa told Reuters, without elaborating. Asked if AMCU had an agreement in principle with the three producers, Mathunjwa responded: “Yes, subject to a mass meeting of general members to confirm it again.”

Friedland a skeptic on lithium, rare earths – by Salma Tarikh (Northern Miner – September 30, 2016)

October 6, 2016

http://www.northernminer.com/

Robert Friedland, a renowned mining financier and promoter, took the stage at the recent Mines and Money Americas conference in Toronto to highlight the need for platinum and copper, as rapid global urbanization continues. Both are key metals in projects his company Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN; US-OTC: IVPAF) is developing in Africa.

“I am not here to depress the gold bugs in this room. I’m just here to get you excited about copper and other metals that we need in our new society,” Friedland said.

The executive — who sold the large nickel-copper-cobalt deposit Voisey’s Bay in Labrador to Inco for $4.3 billion in 1996, and whose company discovered the large Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold deposit in Mongolia in 2001 — noted that there will likely be a billion more people living in urban environments by 2030. As a result, more people would live in cities filled with “toxic smog,” he said, citing that 6.5 million people die a year from air pollution.

Copper, platinum key to future of auto industry, mining financier says – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – September 27, 2016)

September 27, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The current lithium frenzy will end badly while gold bugs should look at the riper opportunities available in copper and platinum, according to mining financier Robert Friedland.

In a sprawling, exuberant and at times politically incorrect speech at the Mines and Money Americas conference in Toronto, the veteran promoter demonstrated he hasn’t lost his sales mojo as he ticked off all the reasons why the properties owned by his Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. just happen to be ideally positioned for the next wave of automotive technology.

“I’m not here to depress the gold bugs in the room, but to get you excited about copper and other metals that we need in our new society,” he said as he accepted a lifetime achievement award.

SA platinum supply: between a rock and a hard place (BizCommunity.com – September 20, 2016)

September 20, 2016

http://www.bizcommunity.com/

A lack of investment means the country’s platinum miners will need to dig deep to meet demands in the medium term. Their struggles are not dissimilar to those flowing throughout the South African mining industry – cost pressures, substantial declines in commodity prices, and low or negative profit margins.

But, says Andries Rossouw, PwC partner in assurance, the lack of investment in the recent past in South Africa’s platinum mining industry – due to the low-price environment and industrial action from 2012 to 2014 – will continue to put pressure on the existing supply deficit.

“SA’s platinum miners had to cut cost and reduce capital expenditure in order to survive in the hope that normality will return to the platinum sector.” South Africa provides more than 70% of primary mined platinum supply and more than 55% of total supply, including recycling.

[Pacific North West Capital Corp.] Sudbury Accent: Slump easing for exploration company – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 17, 2016)

September 17, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Say you’re a barber who runs your own shop, and you haven’t had a customer in your chair for five years. You may be tempted to give up, to literally throw in the towel, even enter another line of work. But you hang in there.

Finally, after a half-decade of inactivity, customers begin to return, slowly at first, but growing in number as word spreads you’re back and in business, and offering a good product. Harry Barr used that analogy this week at a town hall meeting in Sudbury intended to drum up interest in Pacific North West Capital Corp.’s River Valley Platinum Group Metal Project.

After a brutal five-year period, in which low commodity prices spooked investors away from sinking money into mineral exploration, interest in the River Valley project began to grow again. The presentation at the Holiday Inn, hosted by Barr, capped off two days of tours in which 30 or more people toured the River Valley property and visited the core shed for the project 100 kilometres northeast of Sudbury.

World wants platinum, says Northam’s Dunne of R7bn plan – by David McKay (MiningMx – August 24, 2016)

August 25, 2016

http://www.miningmx.com/

DOUBLING production at a cost of R7bn in the platinum sector may seem a demonstration of extreme optimism, but Northam Platinum CEO, Paul Dunne, believes there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful about the future.

In an interview with Mining in July, he told how the country’s platinum sector nearly hit the wall at the end of 2015. Prices for the basket of platinum group metals – platinum, palladium, rhodium and nickel – fell so low that only mine gate fixed costs were covered. In layman’s terms, miners were faced with the decision of whether to stay open, or close.

“We very, very nearly got there towards the end of last calendar year, but we’ve just managed to avoid it by some balance sheet management,” he said. Prices have also helped with a 15% recovery in the rand basket at the time of writing. “We were on the verge of severe structural change,” he added.