News

May 28, 2008

Ridge Mining Will Partially Fill The Platinum Supply Deficit, Providing It Gets Power To Its Projects

By Rob Davies

Donald McAlister, finance director of Ridge Mining, was in ebullient form when Minews contacted him for an update on progress. Unfortunately, it was during platinum week so everyone was rather busy and chief executive Terence Wilkinson had just popped out. What is clear though, from talking to Donald and to long-time mining brokers, is that there isn’t enough platinum to go round.

The start of Ridge Mining’s Blue Ridge operation in November this year will help the supply situation, but at a projected output of 150,000 ounces of platinum group metals per year it won’t even come close to bridging the 450,000 ounce gap that most observers think there is between demand and supply.  Even though the car market is weak at the moment, as a result of escalating oil prices, demand for platinum group metals in auto-catalysts is being driven by the retrofit programme for trucks...