Every Friday, SAfm’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kamwendo: Strong new global investment in platinum is shielding it from tariffs that are being imposed.

Creamer:  Tariffs have been worrying everybody. They have been coming around the world in all sorts of different directions. But fortunately, the demand for platinum now is so strong and the actual impact of the tariffs will be so small now. It is about 1.4% probably at 112 000 ounces for 2025. So, tariffs are not a concern against the background of huge demand, particularly investment demand, out of China.

Now, China doesn't produce any of its own platinum group metals, but it’s going to be using a lot of them, so it’s building up a stockpile of platinum group metals and this is saving the day. You can see the price of platinum is really up at beyond $1 400 an ounce and it  just keeps moving up and up these days, particularly after that big Shanghai Platinum Week being so successful in China.

Kamwendo: Public-private railway collaboration was highlighted this week by a contract signed for manganese transport.

Creamer:  That’s right. United Manganese of the Kalahari signed a 10-year contract with Transnet to ensure that they will be able to export their manganese in collaboration with Transnet. This is an indication of greater confidence in Transnet being built up by the mining sector, particularly on the rail side of collaboration that also involves exportation through ports.

So, it is a great example of public-private partnership, where the business is getting in with the government to make sure that the railing will be reliable and they will get this important manganese metal to market for steelmaking. A 10-year contract like this gives them a lot of opportunity to discuss things on an ongoing basis, which gives South Africa a lot of security of service.  I'm sure a lot of the other mining companies will be doing the same.

Kamwendo: Engineering work on a long-stalled platinum project began to emerge this week in Limpopo province.

Creamer: Again, because the platinum price is going up, you see the Waterberg project in Limpopo beginning to edge forward. South Africa has been waiting and watching for that for some time now. Beneficially, it suddenly started to pop up this week where they announced that the surface engineering, surface planning was beginning for this particular very important palladium heavy platinum group metals mine. They are also looking to value-adding processing in South Africa, but they may do it in a different way.

They may do a portion of the processing in Limpopo, meaning that the metals will be beneficiated to a certain level, but not totally, before being sent abroad for the remaining beneficiation required for supply to the market. The owners are working on this at the moment, and are in discussion with the South African government on the extent to which local value-adding is likely to take place. Hopefully, it will turn out that they process here totally, because it is much better to export the final product from South Africa than to have that done from the Middle East, which is under evaluation.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing, editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly.