Consulting analysts in mining, metals and commodities
Platinum-group Metals
Our team have over 80 years’ combined experience in the PGMs sector, with expertise covering the many-faceted dynamics of production, the economics of supply, and consumption, including equity analysis, trading and hedging activities and in-depth comparative analytics of industry stakeholders.
Our extensive knowledge of the PGMs and their markets will augment your strategic decision-making, whether you need extensive production forecasts or costs analyses for ground-level operations or, an incisive profit-focused summary of the market going forward for your executive board. Our team can provide detailed, confidential, value-adding reports tailored to the needs of producers, consumers or, the investment community within timeframes negotiated to best suit your needs.
Recent examples of bespoke client projects include:
- Providing a detailed breakdown of the comprehensive economics of primary supply for a specific project, including a “like for like”-based projection of expected mine costs and margins, with scenarios flexed to demonstrate the cost-warping potential of impending wage negotiations, and the longer-term effects of prolonged power shortages, and legislation resulting from political regime changes
- In-depth analysis groundwork to add a robust foundation for a client’s feasibility study of new start-up projects, including site visits, evaluation of the facilities and infrastructure, and a benchmarking and peer-group ranking comparison of other producers on a local and global level
- A full evaluation and benchmarking of new junior PGM projects, including a comprehensive breakdown of expected costs and logistics for each stage of the mining, concentrating, smelting and refining production stages
- A metallurgical “mass balance” across all PGM processes from mine to ingot, including the provision of scenario-based, long-term pricing for project feasibility purposes for platinum, palladium, and minor PGM projects (Rh, Ir, Ru)
- A full assessment of the current and probable future end-uses of PGMs under the existing background market dynamics and drivers, including:
- Autocatalysts: new technologies and increasingly stringent emissions legislation;
- metal substitution: the ongoing substitution of platinum by palladium and rhodium;
- jewellery consumption: the effects of income elasticity and price elasticity; and
- industrial applications: petroleum, chemical and glass applications on a capacity basis
- Forward-looking, authoritative macroeconomic research and price forecasts supported by our strong ties with statistical research specialists, Oxford Economics
- Ongoing monitoring of the economic and political climates of major PGM-producing regions, including detailed SWOT and PEST analyses of politically unstable areas such as Zimbabwe, South Africa and Russia, outlining and highlighting principal sources of threat and opportunity on a client-specific basis
- Identifying opportunities for new entrants waiting to participate in the PGM value chain, including timely investment in existing projects, periods of advantageous market and/or macroeconomic conditions, and assessment of new project prospects against the current and likely future producer peer group.